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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY BULLETIN 156

THE IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AN OFFSHOOT OF THE CALUMET DANCE

By William N. Fenton with AN ANALYSIS OF THE IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AND SONGS By Gertrude Prokosch Kurath

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON : 1953

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office Washington 25,D.C. - Price $1.50 (paper)

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Bureau OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, Washington, D. C., Dec. 21, 1961.

Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled “The Iroquois Eagle Dance, an Offshoot of the Calumet Dance,” by William N. Fenton, with “An Analysis of the Iroquois Eagle Dance and Songs,” by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath, and to recommend that it be published as a bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

Very respectfully yours, M. W. Sriruine, Director.

Dr. ALEXANDER WETMORE,

Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. Ir

CONTENTS

PAGE PEOUUGWOME eerie oe tates ee Sook ee ene meee he Sst, 1 He PRODIOMIA = 2-ee o o de ees Ba eek oe, 5 PHOREUG HOLE: nom ook ooh aca Colona mee eee tte & 12 The Seneca Eagle Dance at Coldspring on Allegheny River_.......-___- 13 Asummer meeting, with emphasis on the ritual__.._..._____-_-____ 13 Preliminary..-_- . steno esate satteee hp eg See etal: o 15 Thanksgiving to all the spirit-forces__............._....__-_-_- 15 Tobacco prayer to the Dew EHagle_ =. 222..2-2-L---2-.iL-_---- 15 The vtual.. Ak =k ope he sere tO te aitat2 on -8e 16 SUNG PCASb. ose ei is oe eee ao teay fas. 20 The anniversary celebration of Resting-sky’s cure._.._-._..__...._-- 21 Mhanksgiyine. o) ne hae en erases hae = DISSES BoEHEHL tee een as 24 Webscco invocstionass Via 50~ 1h ond -eeeieee eet SSeS lk. 24 Assignment of roles and paraphernalia. __.___........-------- 24 Miho wiGWal 2 of set te oe Oi Se eee ie abet forte Lott Ben 24 he distribution. of the feast... s0-..1t ated edt 96 ee 29 Later celebrations at, Allegany. 2.26.6 oc pe tee te ln 31 RDG ARP Re ee a ES tenia 37 The participating personalities at Coldspring__..__._...-.-.-.------ 38 The Eagle Dance as a vehicle for personality expression._______ 38 Case 1. Wood-eater, an elderly man of the Bear Clan___._____- 40 Case 2. Corn-husker, a middle-aged commoner of the Hawk Clan_ 43

Case 3. Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, Guardian of the Good Message Po ne err Cla oho oo et maget See. 45

Case 4. Snorer, a Faith-keeper of the Hawk Clan, a conscientious Obiecters aS ee ee ot et eth ns ee eee) opt. 46

Case 5. Hemlocks-lying-down, a so-called ‘‘Cayuga” of the SIT hae Cy GC; Ei; SOR Smee, a ae ne Ly SEER OS, OOO, | Soe 49 Case 6. Earth-hiller, Matron of the Wolf Clan._.____.________ 53 Ramm@en ts no pcs Soi fe ese ha ht 2 ie Bauer het fs 54 The Seneca Eagle Dance at Tonawanda__._.--___-_-------__------__- 54 he ceremony 22. Sec ot ale eed ene: wee tts UE... 54 Membership .noveo lott ect pg loeaere erect wel eepance ton 56 Setting the bundle up before a meeting place___..____---_-___- 57 Pi amiceivine. 26 43... Sele Ch eh tet fob nc epee 58 Anmouncement.2 of 2) Soe aoe . See be Be SE emir FE 58 Tabacco invocation=culyec3)2ie JY fa ee Se Poe he eed 5 59 Distribution. of tiny pieces of meat.__._ 22-22 22sseeu2-2 60 Assignment of roles and presentation of paraphernalia___._____-_ 60 kb tO LAT 2h Ane ee ce er oo nee Feet aS Pees 60 The-distribution of the feast... 2. 26nd Se tite 62 EN eye ee a a oe ey eee ee Oe, neem ee 67 ie Onowadage Condor Dante. 2)... sect coed eet ortecdt ceteneeehs 68 LOTTE) Se URE Cs Se SS ey We Pare a Dee Ty OVS ean, Yuan 69 J ot a ee i a See ae eg aL) ae a eee s Cee Pee came: 70 eR bOI D tS REN oe eee 71 DAE 08 Satie | UE a als A ey ms © Omer BPO, 71

IV BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156]

The Eagle Dance on Grand River (Six Nations Reserve), Canada________ The ‘Onondaga ceremony <= -.- 2.225320 5 5 See re ee

The Cayuga Eagle Society ceremony at Sour Springs Longhouse- -__ The Iroquois Eagle Dance as a cultural phenomenon___________________ Salient-features.<--<=+--22-se2see seat eeetee tee ee A century-of- ethnology.-~ === =~~.-=-2+ 2.-seee cee ee Origin Jepends..- eee beeen eee cccsescecs ee eeees ces The legend.of Bloody) Hand. (02 5:J2¢-_ <_ 2 J2_ oul el soe eee

The two brothers learn songs from birds___________________._- Chipping Sparrow’s adventure among Eagles_________________-_

Boy abducted: by-Dew Eagles). 20114 2.382 Soe: Version of-Diido-ewas 220) 24 oC. bos 2b av a agg gge ss

Version. of -Chauncey- Warrior... +. 2s. SU Ee VersiomioiSnerer 22 eee. oe ee eet. OT ae

A Tonawanda variant, by Ernest Smith_________________-

A histone Tecord = + 2eceeee ue Hecate ae BU

Grand River variants, by F. W. Waugh_______________---

Version of -Chief-Logans3s) 41s4_ 508 e002 Jo lipeagaedk. . - Saerifices-and- eagle trappiiigsss~ 2.<c2. S22eseb<i 2: Joo ee eee Sacrifice of the-first kill... 33%... 20091 AE! In sottodtetely enh es Bagle-shooting - = ==2-==2 ---<++4.c-. UAB, JF. aoesieion ee Hagle-batting<- +20. Js. enced el tee cdte eee lec a Dee Eagle catching, by Falling-day, Snipe Clan, Tonawanda__-_---

Dew Eagle dances on the deer, by Ernest Smith, Heron

Clan, Tonawanda) 84/04 sain be. wciiele oe ee

Obtaining eagle feathers, by Hair-burned-off, Snipe Clan, Tonawanda [Asti Ujot ell Ye Poet ee ea Te Pit-Weappinge= = 2<- ute 252 ee-22-222se se 25-4 On ae oe BHorer'’s <Atecount2 ss 264 1h Wea Bie 2 Teele. = BeBe

he. (Cherokee peacet<hee2 oe = etic cee cl eee See The:roots of the Hagle ‘Dantes: 4... wie Oie) ee toolme lt o_o. Classification of Dew Eagles 22+ 22 22+2---.--<-<~ th? Se Dream-experiences...G442 UG 4) Aut 10 note. Sobek Oe “he first dream 2 <2 ws =e ed see ete cee eee een ee Wood-eater joins Hagle Society_______.__----_--_------------ What-Djido’ewas dreamed... =... cc cee ee cee tence I SE Ten-mornings becomes a member, by Djidg’gwas______--_------ Those who. have. inhérited: oc: 2. vittes_cds_alband a8) mais - - Geremonial-friends-.. 2-2 '=--.-esudenccseee ea eee Helper and -He-is-coming + .3..22-<220dsceck 2 Seo. . The dream and delirium of He-strikes-the-rushes__-______------ Comment... ===. -2<s2seuJhS 19 See Ve: Norte taaeiCt | Ritual equipmentist en, jo fhoneinesns pee ealod Joana | _ Ritual organizations.<2223¢ <u cc cece deere enen a eeNE SAE Selecting functionaries. = ----=--..J2¢0L 012 2 _Apeueiih sa. FnVItatiONS. -= 2 seen eee eeec eee eee eee eee = ere Arranging the. meeting - - -2<«u.2<..2<en de e_euebans Moiety- patterning.- -=---<2=2ucce kan dewkeeen sens fOoIqQue

The rial -pattern- «<== <-<ssscencs =e cee deeenenn ss ou we Opening:<2c--+2222sSse2s2ce-5estacsscune ee. Vee Tobacco invooations = =22+24-<2522iu5deiesewt ION Oe

CONTENTS V

The Iroquois Eagle Dance as a cultural phenomenon—Continued

The ritual pattern—Continued PAGE Hori and COnsenuOl speeches. = ss aaa eee See ee Fee 148 he Gancooind senpols this 9 5%. Vy es ee Ne ee 151 AUTOS) THEE ies ph ds, hh gd i lyn en Ne Mae AY tel Soro aay hae Be 152 Porcumenvary Mistonyes 2 Saat Se we a ee ee eee ee ee 153 ANGIE Vey rUt ue tLeENOUEG. 82 Se ee ee ee ee See ne 154 DorrrpUtlen Mi COMparisOle. S.- s eee ee See. 2 172 RECRTTC MIE TO Ia re sey ea a a ae A I a Dae cee ee ee 206 PeleiGer tiny Stn 2 ae enc bee ee te ee ae ere 210

Supplement: An analysis of the Iroquois Eagle Dance and Songs, by Gertrade crokosch Murath*:= = seer oo sao Se ee ee eee 223

ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES

D> oe oo

21.

(All plates, except frontispiece, following page 222)

(Frontispiece.) Dew Eagle dances on the deer. (Watercolor by Ernest Smith, Seneca artist of Tonawanda.)

. The household of Resting-sky. Back row: Resting-sky and Voice-above.

Center: It-dips-water; and (front) her grandson.

. Sherman Redeye, Snipe Clan, Coldspring Seneca informant.

. Clara Redeye, Voice-above, Hawk Clan, interpreter, at Coldspring.

. It-dips-water, Hawk Clan matron, wife of Resting-sky, Coldspring Seneca. . Eagle Dance in 1942 for Big-canoe and He-carries-an-ax. 1, Wood-eater puts

tobacco in the fire. 2,On the last song the dancers lay down the feather fans.

. Eagle Dancein 1942. 1, The second round of speeches for Dew Eagle. 2, The

dancers crouch and sway with the song.

. Eagle Dance in 1942. 1, Passing the pig head and crying like crows. 2,

Members carry home pails of corn soup.

. Wood-eater, Bear Clan, Seneca ritualist at Coldspring. . Corn-husker, Hawk Clan, Seneca of Coldspring, and his two pet hawks. . Twenty-canoes, Bear Clan, and Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, Deer Clan, guard-

ians of Handsome Lake’s message, as delegates from Coldspring to Tona- wanda Longhouse.

. Snorer, Hawk Clan, Seneca of Coldspring. . Hemlocks-lying-down, Turtle Clan, conductor and singer of Seneca ceremonies

at Coldspring.

. Earth-hiller, matron of the Wolf Clan, Coldspring. . Helper, Sachem chief of the Bear Clan, Tonawanda Seneca. . 1, He-strikes-the-rushes, Snipe Clan, Seneca ritualist, with gourd rattle of the

Medicine Company, in the costume of the Federal Period. 2, Chief Joseph Logan, Onondaga, and Simeon Gibson, Six Nations Reserve, Canada.

. Djido’gwas, a Seneca of the Wolf Clan, at Coldspring.

. Yankee Spring, a Seneca of the Beaver Clan, at Tonawanda.

. Sarah Snow, Seneca of the Bear Clan, Coldspring’s clairvoyant and herbalist. . Eagle Society Bundles. 1, Fans and gourd rattles from the bundle of Hem-

locks-lying-down. 2, An old set of fans in New York State Museum. Striped emblem pole of Eagle Society, displayed for a meeting of the Society. (Courtesy New York State Museum.)

*For contents of supplement, see pp. 225-227.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLL. 156]

. Five-feathered fans from Cattaraugus Seneca. (Milwaukee Public Museum

photograph.)

. Water drum and horn rattle, by Clarence White of Coldspring, laid out for

Eagle Dance singers.

. Horn rattles: Left, two by Hemlocks-lying-down; right, by Corn-husker.

. Corn-husker’s wife leaches white corn for soup.

. Hulled white corn after three washings.

. The Seneca Eagle Dance. (Oil painting by Ernest Smith, Seneca artist of

Tonawanda.)

. Cherokee Eagle Dance movements by Will West Long: Approach, holding

the fan, and crouch.

FIGURES (Fenton) PAGE 1. Floor plan of Eagle Dance for Francis Bowen_____________________- 14 2. Floor plan of Eagle Dance for Resting-sky_______....._-_________- 22 (Kurath)

3. Groind pilanror sencen ceremony <2 68 3 2 hs a ee 233 4. Ground plan of Onondaga private ritual____________.________-__-- 234 5. Ground plan of Cayuga Longhouse ritual___...........-. 2-20. .- 234 6. “Posttires oF dancers]. | 2 02 96S) 30k ROR ee 20. Saver 235 7. Seneca choreography to first dance song, 8. 4._._--________________- 236 8. Onondaga choreography to first dance song, Oa. 3, 4._____.______-- 236 9. Introductory chants 2200 208 aOR oe Be eS Oa Sante \ - Oana ae 238 10. Dance songs 8. 5, Oa. 13, C. 3—comparative__.._._.__.-.---_----- 239 11. Dance songs 8. 6, Oa. 14—comparative.______.___------.___-_-__- 240 12. 5: 4 and S. t4—comparative...2)2 8 22 St SB _e) A Osaka 240 ia. 7 2 COMPpPErAbIVes sa Snes oe ene eee eee 241 PERE £968 SG soilosage lo havior bnimnasd’T \ . REOs shoo els 241 15. S. 9, 11, and Oa. 11; 8. 10 and Oa. 6—comparative________-__-____- 242 16. 5.12) Og, 15, ©; 7—coniparative.o 2 2°22 * ooo ee OE SRR e ee 243 47, Oa: 879. 10,2 ne nwo To sling otsed rune pa 244 18S: 3, Pe, 15, 16. see Pee SR ENG) Y BOGUS Bh 1 eee 245 19. 8. 377 Oa. 12. C. 5,°S—comiparative. 22 SOC! o>. Ula AW See Osea 246 20. Final dance songs, S. 18, Oa. 16, C. 9—comparative____-_----_--_- 247 Zi. pecundal Seales: 20 2 2202) SS, SL Sa CODERS Ree 250 22. Lertial seales. 2-2 tu J eee eee 251 2a. Quartal scales. = .--- 2.22 10 BORE Rect BER 252 24. Irregiiar seales_ so 2 Se Pe) i Ce Os 253 25, Rhythmic wniis._2___-- 2 62 e. ole eee ee 257 26. Symmetrical contours, parallel and complementary --_--_------------ 261 27, Asymmetrical contours Ob Os 1 tbe! 3Ooe. he Re On ee meee 262 28. Sequential contours—opening and closing songs__-.---------------- 263 2y, intertribal dance patterns.) 2002 Soe ee eee. Bee 286 aU: Map ‘of distribution |. 2 Se PRO Oe ee eee Facing 288 31. Tonawanda 1,2, 10‘scales!- 28 020! 20 eee eee ee 290 32. Song excerpts: Pawnee, Omaha invocation; Pueblo, Illinois____----- 291 33. Tonawanda 9, 4; Fox songs 1, 2, 3; seales___..-..._--_-_-.-_-.---- 292 34. Pawnee Hako, Omaha Wa’wa2, Illinois Calumet Dance Songs------ 293 35, Tonawanda 3d, 6, 0, 62-20 on te Se 2 ee eet ae oe 294

36. Cherokee songs 1, 3, 4; scales of tertial Tonawanda and Cherokee

THE IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE AN OFFSHOOT OF THE CALUMET DANCE

By WiuiiamM N. FENTON

INTRODUCTION

The present monograph stems from a dissertation which was origi- nally presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Yale University in candidacy for the degree of doctor of philosophy, 1937. The disser- tation incorporated ethnographic materials which were gathered during field work in western New York between 1933 and 1936, and these were marshaled in a way to show the bearing of the problem of individual variation in behavior on ethnology. My interest in this problem has continued during 12 years of field investigations among the Iroquois and other tribes while a member of the staff of the Bureau of American Ethnology. For one reason or another the monograph has remained unpublished, and the present draft represents a third re- writing. New material has accumulated, historical perspective has deepened and widened, and methods of handling historical problems call for a different presentation. Experience has indicated that it is best to look at historical sources from the viewpoint of the field and to test early descriptions of Indian behavior against a knowledge of how Indians behave as persons. When J at first proceeded from ethnology to the earlier historical sources and tried to reconcile the two types of data across the chasm of several centuries by reading history chrono- logically up to the present, I met with small success. It works better to begin with the present and work steadily backward. For this application of the archeologists’ method of ‘direct historic approach” I have borrowed the term ‘“‘upstreaming,” from the classical archeolo- gists.

Ethnology frequently demands historical investigation at different levels. Starting with individual informants, more general levels are the community, the tribe, neighboring tribes, and the area. The theme of this investigation is that the diversity of individual expression in cultural situations reflects the personal history of the individual within the culture of his group. In the Eagle Dance individuals participate differently in a ceremony which is part of their common cultural heri-

1

Her o 8 1953

2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

tage. Much of the individual differences in behavior consists in performing well roles that are shared by several members of the group and delivering certain utterances which are known to several erudite members of the group. Iroquois ceremonies differ locally in detail, and individual ritual custodians cherish local and tribal variants and modify them slightly even after prolonged residence in another com- munity. But everywhere in Iroquoia the Eagle Dance ritual has one underlying ceremonial pattern which sets limits to the expression of in- dividual personality, and this ritual pattern which orders the program of other Iroquois medicine society rites has developed in the long course of Iroquois history. It regiments all of their ceremonies. The Iroquois Eagle Dance, moreover, and its ritual paraphernalia bear a striking resemblance to the Eagle Dance of the Shawnee and the Cherokee, and all of these variants in the Appalachian Highlands derive from the dance in honor of the Calumet which Marquette first encountered among the Illinois at a time when the Iroquois lacked it. The Calumet Dance spread from the Pawnee east, south, and west, and north following 1680, and in an attenuated form it seems to have reached the Iroquois about 1750. Such a cultural phenomenon as the Eagle Dance and its relation to the Calumet Dance, and the spread of the latter, cannot be explained satisfactorily by only using the functional method which studies the interaction of various elements and institutions of culture at a given point of time, for the explanation of individual and of group behavior often lies in history.

Such anthropological theory as I possess I owe to the faculty in anthropology at the Yale Graduate School who contributed to my professional training some years ago. Prof. Edward Sapir and Dr. Clark Wissler, who will not read this bulletin, taught me linguistics, ethnohistory, and a respect for Indians as persons. Dr. Leslie Spier coached my dissertation, and from him I learned how to be a profes- sional ethnographer. Prof. Cornelius Osgood introduced me to the literature on the Americas, and Prof. George Peter Murdock taught me how to test field work in the library. Material culture came alive in the hands of Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck). The students of my age group are now professionals—teachers, museum administrators, and researchers—mostly outside of the Americanist tradition in which we were reared. Anthropology has grown immensely since June of 1933 when Professor Sapir and Dr. Mark May sent me out to the Iroquois from the Institute of Human Relations and subsequently earmarked funds for my research. I should have failed completely were it not for the friendly advice of Dr. Frank G. Speck, who, although I was not enrolled as his student at the University of Pennsylvania, suggested a method of outlining the Seneca ceremonies at Coldspring Longhouse which gave unity to all my later work (Fenton, 1936 b). For

SADi ca tse

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 3

my dissertation, he contributed notes on the Cherokee and Cayuga Eagle Dances and read the manuscript. Speck later became a member of the Eagle Society at Coldspring, an honor which I cannot claim, and his Seneca friends performed the rite for him last on January 20, 1950, in an effort to revive him “‘on the brink of the grave’’ (Speck, 1950; and The Seneca of Coldspring Longhouse, 1950, pp. 60-61).

From my colleagues in Eastern Woodland studies, Prof. Carl and Dr. Erminie Voegelin of Indiana University, I have received notes on the Sawikila Eagle Dance of the Shawnee. Martha Champion Randle spent a week with us at Tonawanda in 1936, recording Bob Shanks’ Eagle songs, which are now transcribed happily by Gertrude P. Kurath of Ann Arbor, Mich., author of the analysis of the dance and songs which supplements my study. Beginning in 1941 recording equipment was made available to me by the Library of Congress, and the Eagle Dance recorded by Chief Joseph Logan of Six Nations Reserve was included in the first album of Iroquois music (Fenton, 1942, pp. 29-30). For a good deal of historical and distributional data I am indebted to Prof. Regina Flannery Herzfeld, of Catholic University of America, and the late Prof. John M. Cooper.

Ethnology among the Iroquois has a long genealogy, which I have recounted several times (Fenton, 1940, pp. 160-164; 1949, pp. 233- 234; 1951 a). Lewis H. Morgan, America’s great ethnologist, pre- ceded me a century ago at Tonawanda, and I once had access to his journals and field notes at the Rush Rhees Library of the University of Rochester. F.W. Waugh was one of the people for whom Sapir made field work possible at Grand River during the second decade of the century. Waugh’s Iroquois Field Notes, in manuscript, was lent to me some years ago by the National Museum of Canada through Dr. Diamond Jenness. The originals are in Ottawa, but a duplicate set of Waugh’s folklore collection is now at the American Philosophical Society Library. The Waugh papers contain several references to the Eagle Dance.

Subsequently, Dr. Alexander A. Goldenweiser sent me his Iroquois notebooks, which contain some pointed notes on the Eagle Dance. To Dr. Arthur C. Parker, emeritus director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences, I am indebted for contributions from his early Newtown Seneca field notes and excerpts from the manuscripts of Laura Wright, and for his kindness in reading a preliminary draft of this monograph.

I once used the reference libraries of Buffalo, incurring debts of gratitude to many persons. I worked mainly at the Buffalo Historical Society where I remember the kindness of Robert W. Bingham to a student, and the help of Miss Alice Pickup, librarian.

Ernest Smith is one of a band of Seneca draftsmen at Tonawanda,

4 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

and my friend Roy M. Mason, N. A., gave him criticism in painting when Smith set out to illustrate my ethnology. To the New York State Museum and other such institutions I have given credit where due for photographs and permissions to publish. In first preparing this manuscript great credit is due to Olive Ortwine Fenton, who tried to teach me to write coherently and who became my wife.

It is the custom in ethnology to call the bearers of the oral tradition ‘Gnformants.’”’ At Coldspring, Jonas and Josephine Snow were my hosts one summer, as were Sherman and Clara Redeye the next winter and summer. I learned as I ate and lived in the community. Some informants worked for wages by the hour; on principle, I paid them when we worked regularly according to local wage standards. These were my friends at Coldspring, as are those of them who survive to- day (1951): Levi Snow, Charles and Sadie Butler, William, Hattie, and LeRoy Cooper, Chief John Jacobs, Jonas Crouse, Wesley White, Albert Jones, John Jimmerson, Chief Hiram Watt, Chauncey Johnny John, Howard Jimmerson, Henry Redeye, Myron and Lucy Turkey, Chauncey and Geneva Warrior, and others who listened to and pa- tiently answered my questions during two summers at Coldspring. James Crow, Jake Jack, and Jesse Cornplanter, whose ethnological in- terest dates from childhood memory of his father Edward Cornplanter working with Prof. Frederick Starr, Arthur C. Parker, and M. R. Harrington, introduced me to Seneca customs at Newtown Longhouse, Cattaraugus Reservation.

I cannot mention all of the 600 persons at Tonawanda who made 2% years among them a unique experience, but Chief Barber Black, Chief Edward Black, Chief Lyman Johnson, Chief Solon Skye, and Chief Henan Scrogg made a policy of seeing that I got things straight; and besides, I tutored under Elijah David, Simeon Skye, Jesse Corn- planter, and Robert Shanks; Cephas Hill and his mother, Jennie Jones, made me always welcome; and Rev. Peter W. Doctor enjoyed going back to his pagan upbringing to enrich my knowledge.

Onondaga information comes principally from Chief David Thomas, his wife, their son, and his friend Floyd Henhawk. I did not witness the Eagle Dance at Newtown or at Onondaga, N. Y. In Canada, the late Simeon Gibson was my interpreter (Fenton, 1944), and Chief Joseph Logan of Onondaga Longhouse recorded for me. Chief Alex- ander General and Howard Skye of the Cayuga Nation have proved invaluable sources.

In quoting informants and in citing information about them, the text employs English translations of Indian personal names that they hold as members of particular clans and by which they are called on ceremonial occasions. Many of these people who were my friends have already ‘‘gone the long trail’; those who are left deserve my

FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 5

wholehearted loyalty. Let those who read this monograph accept it with a clear mind, for it is written without malice aforethought in the spirit of speeches made at Hagle Dance meetings.

THE PROBLEM

Field workers in North America have all experienced the dilemma of the ethnographer trying to resolve data which were obtained from in- formants who agree only on the patterned aspects of their culture, such as the presence of clans, the function of moieties, and the broad outlines of a calendric series of ceremonies. However, the appreci- ation that individual variations within the culture pattern or from a supposed norm are legitimate cultural data, which Radin championed in ethnology (Radin, 1920, 1926, 1927, 1933), and which Sapir stim- ulated in culture-personality psychology (Mandelbaum, 1949), has grown apace with the interest of the role of the individual in the cul- ture of his society (Linton, 1936, 1947; Hallowell, 1946; Fenton,1948; Wallace, A. F. C., 1952). The ethnographic material on the Eagle Dance which follows shows the extent to which individual participation affects cultural situations and what aspects of such behavior can be accounted for with the ordinary techniques of ethnology. The meth- ods and techniques of projective tests were developed after this study was made and were not then available. Itis interesting, however, to compare my impressions of Iroquois personality (Fenton, 1948), written under the stimulation of reading Hallowell (1946), with the findings of Wallace (1952), who confirmed my predictions for the Tuscarora.

During the summer of 1933, I conducted my first field work among the Seneca Nation, spending the whole season at Coldspring on the Allegany Indian Reservation, which stretches 40 miles along the Al- legheny River in southwestern New York. I went to Allegany Res- ervation because two previous generations of my family have been acquainted with Seneca families resident there. My father had once taken me to a Green Corn Dance at Coldspring Longhouse, and we had visited among the families of “pagans” in the neighborhood. Corn-husker had made masks for my father and had assisted in assem- bling an ethnological collection, which was later divided between the United States National Museum and the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. So Corn-husker took me to board with his family, and I slept out in an umbrella tent which had been lent to me by Scudder Mekeel, who had preceded me at the Institute. Living in the dooryard of a Seneca family had distinct advantages. My host knew about the old culture and he was interested in my wel- fare. From the vantage point of Corn-husker’s dooryard, I observed and noted the goings and comings of his family, their relatives, and

6 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156

friends. In turn we visited other houses to attend meetings of a singing society, to widen my circle of acquaintance, and to get specific information.

I stayed with Corn-husker from June until after the Green Corn Festival in September. As the single White stranger in the commu- nity, a member of a race whom the Seneca had come to suspect if not dislike (Sullivan and Brodhead had come against the Seneca in 1779; the Whites had cheated the Indians of their lands at Buffalo Creek in 1838; Yankee farmers lived all around them; and in the city of Sal- amanca on leased land were merchants and lawyers, railroad workers, and middle-class folks, some friendly and some unfriendly), naturally my ethnological activities were watched and discussed by the Indian individuals and families, who reacted according to their own interests and prejudices, their sentiment for the Longhouse Religion of Hand- some Lake, or their belief as Christians that I was giving lip service to the ‘‘pagan societies.” They grouped me with Corn-husker’s family— “that White man who sleeps in a tent at Corn-husker’s’’—and grad- ually they regarded me as a person. The ethnologist presented a single personality; to him the community presented many person- alities.

Life at Coldspring is a going concern and the longhouse settlement has a culture of its own. Albeit this culture is not the integrated culture of an aboriginal Seneca community, nevertheless faith in the revelation of the Seneca Prophet, Handsome Lake, unites a small autonomous group of families and gives them a sense of belonging to something which is ancient and respectable; and they cherish the last vestiges of that culture, which their somewhat isolated life on the res- ervation has engendered. I write this knowing that of three railroads crossing the reservation, the Erie has given employment to the men of Coldspring for several generations. The “regular” gang and the “extra” gang comprise two distinct classes of workmen in the commu- nity. Work in the woods has given way to construction work, prin- cipally on New York State highways, of which two main roads junction at Coldspring. Randolph, Salamanca, and Bradford have supplanted nearby Quaker Bridge, Steamburg, and Red House as shopping centers. And children are transported to State-supported schools. But despite these identifications with rural New York, from their babyhood chil- dren are taught Seneca, “‘the real language’? (ggw’e’ gweka’’),! which is spoken in Coldspring, and later they learn English (gényg: ka’’), the language of the White man, his schools, and his work-a-day world. (Conditions have changed rapidly since my first visit in 1933; it was the period of the depression, there was no work off the reservation, and many old people who spoke little English were yet alive. Change has

1 See phonetic note, p. 12,

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 7

accelerated during a Second World War. Now many of the children are not learning Seneca.) Women still pick huckleberries along the tracks and carry them home in splint baskets of their own manufacture. On summer evenings, mutual aid societies meet to compose and rehearse dance songs, there are impromptu social dances, and the members hoe each other’s gardens, cut wood, and help the women (Fenton, 1936 a). Men still play lacrosse in summer, although base- ball is a keen rival, and snow-snake remains the distinctive Indian winter sport. Nearly everyone attends the stated festivals at the longhouse.

Coldspring used to be noted for its well-kept Indian gardens, although in my time there, both good and poor gardens were common. Corn-husker had a well-kept garden of potatoes, cabbage, corn, pole beans, squash, and pumpkins. At various times the whole family worked in the garden and older women still assumed much of the tra- ditional burden of cultivation. Rude plank and clapboard houses were the rule and well-tended lawns were not exceptional. At Corn- husker’s the accessories of the old garden and kitchen culture—corn mortar, dumbbell pestle, washing basket, pack basket, hand baskets— lay where they were left about the dooryard or stood behind the house. There was the inevitable drawshave horse or schnitzelbank and a bent white hickory timber for making a lacrosse stick.

Inside the house at night, the kerosene lamp would illumine a mud turtle rattle, a bag of horn rattles, a lacrosse stick hanging on the wall next to a shotgun, and baseball gloves. Indians especially like photo- graphs—individual portraits, group pictures of athletic teams, mem- bers of the family as show Indians in costume with some troupe, and a few pictures of movie stars. There is always a calendar advertising Dr. Somebody’s patent medicine which gives the phases of the moon and is consequently useful for computing the dates of festivals. An alarm clock stands on the shelf. Overhead, above the stove, snow- snakes, green hickory canes, a bow, and ash darts for the hoop-and- javelin game, extend across drying racks which are improvised by suspending two poles parallel on wire from the ceiling. Gourd and pumpkin rattles fitted with wooden handles hang high on the wall near a bundle of brown paper or floursacking from which protrude two sticks or tufts of feathers, indicating that some member of the Medicine Company lives here.

When members of the family are taken sick, they try various herbal medicines suggested by the elders. If they dream, they consult a clairvoyant, who may suggest joining one of the medicine societies. If they recover, they feel thankful and “put up their societies” and give feasts for the tutelaries of the societies, lest the sickness revert to them or their children.

8 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

A Seneca is born into one of eight clans which are divided into two phratries or moieties. At death, the four clans of the other moiety conduct the wake and funeral, supervise the last journey to the longhouse, and bury their “‘cousin.”” Such services are reciprocal. Although the Seneca bear patrilineal English family names, they prac- tice double descent, since membership in a clan implies the right to use one of a series of personal names belonging to that clan; it assigns the person automatically to a moiety or side, and he is an enrolled member of the tribe and entitled to receive a Government annuity—all by descent in the female line. Deeds to improvements on the reservation may pass from father to sons, but most personal property is disposed of by the clan at the Ten Days’ Feast. And the title to the reservation, which they hold in severalty, ultimately rests in the women.

Such information came to me by observation, in answer to direct questions, as anecdote accompanying genealogies, in conversations at all manner of gatherings and ceremonials, at meals, and while walking on the road. Thus I endeavored to learn rapidly the social and ceremonial affiliation of everyone in the commupity.

Apart from individual variations in behavior which arise at psycho- logical levels beyond the reach of the ethnologist, I noted first among the Seneca diversity of individual expression which struck me as being the product of the peculiar participation of these individuals in the culture of the group. Men know some things because of personal history. In the first summer, I was continually impressed that indi- viduals differed on the most elementary cultural data: names for baskets, the order for listing clans, and knowledge of the types of masks (Fenton, 1937, p. 216). Members of the same household had separate and often divergent stories for the beginning of a medicine society, and they gave varying accounts of participation in the cere- monies. Men whom [I had observed in positions of authority, as ritual conductors of longhouse celebrations or private rites of a society, might know all of the songs and the procedure, but they proved quite ignorant concerning the origin and history of the ceremonies. As time went on, the housemother where I boarded voluntarily commented on possible informants. She had entertained the medicine societies in her home, and although she seldom attended public cere- monies at the longhouse, she knew: ‘“‘ Hemlocks-lying-down is a good singer, and he knows all about medicines; Snorer is the best speaker, he knows the origin legends, and you will have to pay him; Woodeater is proud, he speaks little English, and he may not tell you; I guess my man Corn-husker does not know what his father knew; and old Stick- lodged-in-a-crotch is always asleep and they say he never hears what the speaker says.”

I began to realize that within the framework of a simple commu-

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 9

nity of 72 households and 326 persons, individuals participate differ- ently in affairs which are their common social heritage. Also my approach to principal persons carried the feeling-tone of my adopted household.

My first effort was to establish the pattern which underlies the rituals, for many of them presented superficial similarities and seemed to follow a common program (Fenton, 1936b). The Eagle Dance was among the first medicine society rites which I was privileged to witness that first summer when my enthusiasm for recording all I saw ‘and noting the clan membership of every participant had not been dampened by the criticism of learned informants who soon told me that much of what I noted was really irrelevant to the ritual. My spurious accuracy contrasted with a review of the meeting by Hem- locks-lying-down, who had conducted the ceremony; he corrected my notes and gave me an account of the ceremony which revealed an abstract pattern for the ritual which he knew from many meetings. Later, as better informants and interpreters were secured and I com- menced to control the outline of the ritual, I decided that what individuals had to say in these meetings might constitute a body of interesting data.

Sapir’s lectures on the “Impact of Culture on Personality,” during the next academic year at Yale, stimulated me to pursue data on personality expression in ritual. I was back in Coldspring for the Seneca New Year (January 18 to February 2, 1934). With the ritual pattern firmly in mind, I set about recording the expressions of indi- vidual personalities which came to me in the form of life-history data, direct testimony, gossip about others; I noted what individuals took part in the ceremonies and what roles were assigned to them; and I paid particular heed to derogatory speeches which have a formalized place in the Eagle Dance and in the War Dance, which are two of the medicine society meetings. It is in these speeches that one finds individuals reacting to the behavior of others within the formal outline of a ceremony. Within the larger framework of Iroquois ceremonialism the culture has provided this opportunity for individ- uals to drain off aggression. The speeches made on these occasions reflect personality conflicts, prejudices, humor, and bitterness, and all those varied emanations, such as song, gesture, and etiquette, which result from individual participation in the culture of the group, and are, in short, an individual’s own peculiar culture or his personality.

Individuals who participated in the meetings of Eagle Society which I have attended at Coldspring and at Tonawanda have their own personal histories, which are distinct from the history of the Eagle Society. Although their behavior patterns conform mainly to

10 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

the lines of least resistance within the well-worn grooves of the ritual, nevertheless one individual may tower above his fellows for sheer quality in performing routine tasks, another may feel uncomfortable in the presence of a third, and because of some past incident he may not speak at all, and a fourth person may absent himself entirely. A fifth person may enjoy the situation immensely and rise to joke with his fellow members of Eagle Society who are his neighbors.

There were some five men and a woman whose presence or absence affected the form and content of two Eagle Society meetings at Cold- spring. Their case histories seem relevant to this discussion. The cases are pertinent to the first two meetings. The first meeting em- phasizes the ritual and is followed by an anniversary celebration of Resting-sky’s cure by the Eagle Society. The latter meeting illus- trates how the varied personalities participated in the situation, and possibly their behavior, individually as well as together, was the result of historical processes. The notes from this meeting also illustrate how ritual, or progressively abbreviated set forms of behavior, is influenced by variation in individual behavior.

Perhap’s like Radin’s good investigators (Radin, 1933, p. ix), I am hardly aware of the precise manner in which I gathered the data on the Eagle Dance as a cultural phenomenon. In the season of 1934 and in the 2% years that followed in the Indian Service, I employed the Coldspring observations as a lever to pry from many informants in several Iroquois communities all I could get on the Hagle Society. That the ethnologist finds out what he already knows is a maxim which all later field work has confirmed. While at Tonawanda I came to use Seneca in daily conversations, and a good deal of the material was noted in phonetic script, especially the prayers which I took in text. But most of the accounts came in “Reservation English” from bilingual informants who shift back and forth between Iroquois and English. I offer their original remarks unaltered ex- cept by changes in grammar to render them intelligible to readers.

The approach to ethnographic problems is inevitably that of the ethnologist. I have conscientiously endeavored to present culture from the viewpoint of the Jroquois, keeping my own discussion apart from the data. Ethnography is not a chronological record of re- searches such as the ethnologist writes in a journal, but is rather a synthesis of material centered on a problem which the ethnologist dis- covers in the literature and carries to the field, or which, as in the present case, the data themselves suggest. The task of ethnology is the description of a given culture.

Field work progresses from the specific to the general. The obser- vations of specific ceremonies and accounts of the ritual from separate localities and the cases of participating personalities precede the most

Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE hb}

general chapter which orients the Eagle Society in Iroquois culture. When traditional history is exhausted, documentary history and comparative ethnography give depth and breadth.

A word first about the Tonawanda, Onondaga, and Grand River variants of the Eagle Dance: A ceremonial friendship existed at Tonawanda between Helper, a chief of the Bear Clan, and his younger neighbor, He-is-coming, of the Snipe clan in the other moiety. They chose to renew this friendship in February 1935, shortly after my arrival at Tonawanda. After the meeting, I wrote up my observa- tions, noting obvious differences from the Coldspring version. I con- sulted the principals and obtained as full accounts as they would give of the doings. Again, certain personalities, whom I came to know well and saw frequently for 2 years, largely determined the content of that meeting. He-strikes-the-rushes, who was reared at Newtown on Cattaraugus Reservation and later lived at Coldspring on Allegany Reservation, had come back to live with his wife at Tonawanda whence his mother had gone to Cattaraugus. Custom has adhered to him as he has adjusted to three localized ceremonial systems. Ton- awanda people quite misunderstood him at this meeting when, in the Newtown pattern, he exercised the privileged joking relationship with his father’s clansman. The latter misconstrued his meaning because, like everyone else at Tonawanda, he did not know of such a pattern or that it is sometimes employed in the Eagle Dance.

Watching and participating at later meetings of the Society at Tonawanda, Allegany, and Six Nations have served to check first impressions. ‘Too long residence in the field, however, unavoidably brings a certain loss of freshness; it encourages abstraction, and in- vites the Indian’s philosophy of procrastination. Frequent, repeated visits over a span of years yield a series of observations, contributing to mature conclusions.

Because Tonawanda people feel that their local version of the Eagle Dance is correct in those features which stand at variance with the Coldspring Seneca version, the Newtown Seneca version, and the ver- sions current among the Canadian Iroquois, local diversity merits separate treatment. My own data and those of Mrs. Kurath on the Onondaga ceremony on Grand River precede the description of the Cayuga rite, which follows Speck (1949, pp. 111-1138).

In placing the Eagle Dance in its ethnographic and historical per- spective, two problems arise: first, the abundant historical literature on the Iroquois, so full on other matters, contains so few references to anything resembling the Eagle Dance that the age of its appearance among the Iroquois is uncertain; and second, where was its source?

The Eagle Dance, in all its variants among the related Iroquois,

982306—53——2

12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156

is a congeries of traits which, when analyzed and plotted, have separate distributions among neighboring peoples. I am not here concerned with trait distributions. But the patterning of these traits among the Iroquois most closely resembles the Calumet Dance which Mar- quette first encountered among tribes living in the Mississippi Valley between the Great Lakes and the St. Francis River in Arkansas; it bears analogies to the Pawnee Hako and its later variants on the Northern Plains. The Iroquois of the seventeenth century are said to have disrespected the calumet, by which the French writers meant the reed and fan. Features of the ancient rite are perpetuated in the modern Iroquois Eagle Dance, so we may expect that some form of the widely distributed Calumet Dance diffused to the Iroquois toward the middle of the eighteenth century either from the Upper Great Lakes, from the Southeast, at the height of the Cherokee wars, or directly from the Pawnee, who perpetuated its most elaborate form.

After the above was written the music and dance were transcribed by Gertrude Prokosch Kurath. It is interesting to see the analysis of the dance and the songs bear out the original findings of ethno- history. Taking the lead from my dissertation, Mrs. Kurath pursued her study independently and has reached similar conclusions about the relationship of the Iroquois Eagle Dance to the Pawnee Hako, the diffusion of the Calumet Dance, and its survival in recent times. The method of science which submits a problem to inde- pendent researchers for testing with separate data and different methods in this case brings corroboration of the original finding.

PHONETIC NOTE

The orthography employed in this paper is the same as that used in previous publications (Fenton, 1936 b, 1941 a). It reduces Seneca transcription to a minimum of characters required by the economy of the language. The vowels a (of English father), d (of English hand) e (of English met), e (of French éé), 2 (of French fini), and o (of English mote) may later be reduced to four: a, e,2, ando. They occur frequently in diphthongs and less frequently triphthongs. Na- salization is denoted by a hook beneath the vowel. A raised comma indicates the glottal stop. The character § is “‘c’”’ (of English shoe); 2 varies between “‘dz”’ and ‘‘dj”’ (of English adz and judge) depending on the speaker; s and ¢ are ordinarily somewhat aspirated; heavily aspirated s and ¢ are followed by A (e. g., sh and th), h everywhere indicates aspiration; and 7’ indicates a terminal whispered ¢ which is articulated after a terminal glottal stop in a few words.

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 13

THE SENECA EAGLE DANCE AT COLDSPRING ON ALLEGHENY RIVER

A SUMMER MEETING, WITH EMPHASIS ON THE RITUAL

Hemlocks-lying-down came up the road past Corn-husker’s about dusk, carrying a leatheroid bag. It contained his drum, a black horn rattle, and his Eagle Society bundle. He informed me that he was the conductor and singer and so, therefore, he was inviting me to attend an Eagle Dance over at Esther Fatty’s across the road.

We sat talking under a maple tree in front of the house until his grandson, who was to be one of the dancers, came along carrying a tin pail. The latter was limping. He said that he heard a screech owl in a pine tree toward the longhouse and that he had turned his ankle. Hemlocks-lying-down remarked that hearing a screech owl is bad luck. Then we picked ourselves up and wandered over cross- lots to Esther Fatty’s house. We entered through the south door, going past the kitchen stove where she was cooking soup in a wash boiler.

Francis Bowen (Hawk), Esther Fatty’s son, and Corn-husker’s second son (Bear), from our house, were in the adjoining room, where the ceremonies were to be held. Two-arrows-flying (Hawk), her grandson, and Sam Fatty (Snipe), 80, her father, came down off the hill from across the Erie tracks. Sam was carrying a lantern.

Presently the room filled with the invited guests, members of the Eagle Society, and they took their places on the chairs and benches which had been placed about the room in readiness. Hemlocks- lying-down, the conductor, seated them according to the accompanying

diagram (fig. 1). Participation in the meeting * Moiety meets 1. Francis Bowen (ska’iyogwi-yo-’), recipient of the ceremony------ If x 2. Esther Fatty, Hawk Clan, matron and hostess to her son____-_-- I (2) 3. Hemlocks-lying-down, Turtle Clan, messenger, conductor, and TERE 2 ee OO Dem ee © eee ee OE ER 2 le Teoh Chek POND AGE x 4, Two-arrows-flying, Hawk Clan, dancer___._..___-_-___-___-_- iE x 5. Hemlocks-lying-down’s grandson, Beaver Clan, dancer_______- II x 6. Corn-husker, Hawk Clan, whooper__........-..------------- I x 7. Amos Red Eye, Heron Clan, presentation speaker__..._..------ I x 8. Wood-eater, Bear Clan, speaker and priest, and presentation speaker. IT x 9. Sam Fatty, Snipe Clan, gift custodian__.........-_--..------ I xX 10. William Cooper, Snipe Clan, second singer_._._._...--------- I x 11. Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, Deer Clan____________-______--_-- I x 12. Corn-husker’s second son, Bear Clan, standing.___._________- TE x 13. Wife and baby.of dancer,5; Hawk Clan 3. .Jo..0!¢.- feck I (?) 14. Recipient’s young son, Turtle Clan, reading paper____.____-__- II (?) 15. Son of second singer 10, Bear Clan, reading paper___--..----. I (?) LOS Wee

17. Child asleep on floor. *X=member; (?)=status unknown.

14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

LAGL a 2 DAN: ee. FRANCIS BOWEN GIFT CUSTODIAN

RECIPIENT

a) : o)

IS 2ND PRES. SPEAKER /4 SECOND SINGER 10 oe = e a

FIRST SINGER SPEAAER ¥ PRIEST @NO PRES. SPEAKER

Tenia tl T OANCERS WHOOPER

MATRON

iil) Aaw ] STRIKING STICK

T OANCERS RATTLE CO BASKET OF CRACKERS

P HORN RATTLE @ SH OF TOBACCO

O oOfUM [] WASH BOILER OF CORN SOUP 7 ORUM BEATER @© PORK FOR FEAST

Ficure 1.—Floor plan of Eagle Dance for Francis Bowen.

Several interesting facts bearing upon the problem of moiety aline- ment emerge from an analysis of the seating plan. The messenger, conductor, first singer, speaker, and priest are of the opposite moiety

Frnron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 15

from the recipient or beneficiary of the ceremony. The dancers, singers, and presentation speakers represent each moiety. Moiety alinement for the whooper and the gift custodian seems unimportant. There is no spatial separation according to moieties in the sense that one moiety sits opposite its “cousins.” We note, however, a conven- ient arrangement of dancers and singers, in general opposite the speak- ers, with the gift custodian opposite the dancers. The matron or cook is the close relative of the recipient for whom she sponsors the ritual, arranging all details with the conductor in the opposite moiety, who in this instance acted also as first singer and supplied the ritual equip- ment. The attendants and functionaries are largely composed of the close relatives of the recipient, and all who have any active part are members. PRELIMINARY

Esther Fatty handed a large market basket full of soda crackers to her son, Francis Bowen, who set it on the floor in the northeast corner.

The two dancers were outside dressing.

The conductor, Hemlocks-lying-down, took from his bag the water drum, with the beater pinned through the selvage of the skin head, together with a black horn rattle, and, removing the beater from the drum, laid it to the right of the drum which he inverted on the floor. He placed the rattle at the left of the drum with the handle toward the second singer.

Hemlocks-lying-down, again as conductor, enlisted the services of several men for specific offices, going about whispering to each one separately. He asked Snorer (Hawk) to be whooper; Amos Red Eye (Heron) to present the fan and rattle to the dancer of his moiety; Wood-eater (Bear) to give the address of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit, to incant the tobacco-throwing prayer, and to present the fan and rattle to the dancer of his moiety; and, finally, Sam Fatty (Snipe) to take charge of distributing gifts—crackers—to the dancers following the speeches.

THANKSGIVING TO ALL THE SPIRIT-FORCES

Wood-eater delivered the Thanksgiving to the Spirit-forces, return- ing thanks especially for the tobacco.

TOBACCO PRAYER TO THE DEW EAGLE

Going to the kitchen, accompanied by the conductor carrying the tobacco in a saucer, Wood-eater held the wands and rattles and punctuated his prayer by committing pinches of tobacco to the flames (p. 145).

When the tobacco prayer was ended, the conductor set the balance of the tobacco on the floor and presently a member filled his pipe and

16 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BuLt. 156

passed the dish to another. All the members who wish may smoke the Indian tobacco. The conductor puts the balance in his pouch or shares it with the priest.

Now the feather wands were brought in from the kitchen with the tiny gourd rattles appended to the handles. Hemlocks-lying-down, the conductor, handed one to Wood-eater (Bear) and the other one to Amos Red Eye (Heron), for the other moiety.

THE RITUAL

(1) Whoop and Song I.2 (Here begins the Eagle Dance proper.) — Corn-husker whooped and all echoed weakly. Hemlocks-lying-down (now as head singer) struck the drum twice and commenced the first song; William Cooper joined the antiphony using the horn rattle. The dancers are seated in their chairs at this dance side by side, instead of facing.

Toward the end of the song, Wood-eater took the striking stick and struck the floor, stopping the singing. He spoke and presented the fan and rattle to Hemlocks-lying-down’s grandson (Beaver), the dancer of his moiety. The dancer, who remained seated in receiving it, disen- gaged the rattle from the fan handle, holding it in his right hand and taking the fan in his left. The members reply ‘It is well” (nyoh), and the drummer strikes the drum once whenever the Creator or Dew Eagle is mentioned, or they are requested to be of one mind with their host.

(2) Whoop and Song II—Amos Red Eye performed the same function for the other moiety, giving the wand and rattle to Two- arrows-flying (Hawk), who in turn took the wand in his left hand and the rattle in his right.

(3) Whoop and Song III.—Sam Fatty (Snipe) reached for the stick, ® struck the floor vehemently, and, standing, addressed the host and members, taking charge of the crackers.

Second round.—The next three speeches repeat the order of the first three speeches. They are delivered by the same men.

(4) Whoop and Song IV.—The dance begins here. Immediately the dancers commence swaying from side to side in their chairs, flut- tering the calumet fans which they hold extended horizontally in their left hands, and beating time with their rattles. During the second part of the song, they crouch on the floor advancing and turning from side to side in imitation of birds. Halfway in the song they bend over, imitating birds scratching in the gravel and eating. Finally the head

2“At Newtown,” according to He-strikes-the -rushes,‘‘a presentation address is made by the conductor, giving the drum and rattles to the singers so they can sing. Two slow songs follow and the wands are pre- sented. Frequently the first two songs are sung over by the priest as he finishes burning tobacco.”” Wood- eater sometimes does this at Allegany.

? The conductor is also acting as head singer, so there is no one left to hand the stick tothemembers. They have to pass it to each other, snaking it across the floor.

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 17

is down below one knee. Then they retreat jumping, turning halfway to either side, and they end with three short beats of their feet and return to their chairs.

Eagle dancing is a tremendous muscular strain, and because of the required agility the role usually devolves upon younger men and boys. Among the Seneca there are still old men who are remembered for having been agile dancers. John Armstrong is crippled with rheuma- tism, but even the younger children know he was once a gifted dancer.

The dancers and singers are expected to continue until someone strikes the signal pole, or floor; then they sit and all whoop softly.

The second round of speeches is addressed to the host.

Wood-eater struck the floor and spoke a second time. He dis- tributed crackers which, according to Hemlocks-lying-down, was the first time. He made the mistake of commencing the distribution in the clockwise direction, but Hemlocks-lying-down corrected him.

Food distribution commences at the second round of speeches, then the dance starts. Presents must be given to the dancers.

(5) Whoop and Song V.—The songs are composed by burden syl- lables, according to Hemlocks-lying-down, and they have no meaning.

Amos Red Eye (Heron) hit the floor and spoke.

This second round of speeches is really the first of the speeches addressed to the host, hoping he will have good luck, ete.

(6) Whoop and Song VI.—Sam Fatty grabbed the stick and beat the floor. Silence followed; and he stood to speak, as each of the others had. Taking the basket by the handle he presented five crackers each to the first and second singers, eight to each of the dancers, and five each to the rest of the active members. The sing- ers and dancers were provided with boxes, as they would get most of them. The others put them in their pockets or on the bench behind them. This being done, the ceremony was resumed.

(7) Whoop and Song VII.—Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (Deer), being nearly asleep, if not entirely, did not reach for the striking stick quite quickly enough; and a dancer (whether or not it was because he was nearest to him, or because he was of the opposite moiety, I am not sure) commenced jumping toward him, only stopping and retreating when the old man struck the floor. Everyone laughed. The dancers are supposed to continue until the signal is given to stop, and therefore theoretically, the speaker must anticipate the end of the song. ‘He is supposed to strike before the whoop, or cry, or at the end of the song.’”’ However, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch was sleepy. He distributed crackers.

This is the first speech by an active member who was not an official.

(8) Whoop and Song VIII.—Wood-eater (Bear), struck the floor, spoke and distributed crackers. This was his third speech.

18 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLt. 156

(9) Whoop and Song [X.—Corn-husker (Hawk), the whooper, struck the floor and spoke. He spoke only once. Most of the others spoke at least twice. He said afterward that he was sleepy, having worked hard all day.

The crackers were well-nigh distributed.

(10) Whoop and Song X.—Amos Red Eye (Heron) also spoke for the third time. It is noteworthy that the original three speakers are continuing in order, but that the whooper has inserted his speech between them, and a member has previously spoken between their second and third group of speeches. It amounts to there being but one member present who has not fulfilled an official role, namely, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, who is partly asleep. Further, the second singer, William Cooper, did not speak; speaking is not required of singers.‘

(11) Whoop and Song XI.—Sam Fatty (Snipe), keeper of the crack- ers, making his third speech, distributed the last of the crackers from the basket. By this time the portions had diminished.

Here Hemlocks-lying-down arose and, as conductor, announced that there would be two more songs before the dancers ‘aid down their fans and rattles’ and departed. The headman makes this announcement when the gifts are nearly distributed; then any addi- tional speakers must provide their own presents. Otherwise, they sing the last song which always precedes laying down the feather fans.

(12) Whoop and Song XIT.—Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (Deer), struck the floor, spoke and donated to the dancers the last of the crackers which had been given to him.

(13) Whoop and Song XIII.—Wood-eater (Bear) beat the floor, spoke, made fun of Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch for having been asleep, and then presented his crackers to Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, who had given all of his to the dancers.

(14) Whoop and Song XIV.—Following the dance, the birds laid down their ritual implements parallel on the floor, each placing the wand with its handle pointing toward his left hand with the fan feathers to the left, and the rattle handle pointing toward his right hand. They departed to dress. The conductor picked up the fans, suspended the rattles from the fan handles by loops attached to the rattle handles, and took the equipment into the kitchen where he rolled it into a bundle in a newspaper wrapper.

Wood-eater, the preacher or speaker, returned thanks to those who had participated and asked the Spirit-forces to guide them and protect them from accident while returning home. This ended the ritual.

# According to He-strikes-the-rushes, ‘‘when the messenger notifies the members, he assigns duties. He says to one, ‘you shall go and strike the stick and speak,’ meaning he shall merely speak; or at second

thought, ‘you shall be the one who shouts’; or ‘you shall be singer.’ The singers are not supposed to make speeches; singing isenough.”’ (See invitation texts, p. 136.)

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 19

An interim followed while the conductor and the hostess were arranging the feast.

Francis Bowen, recipient of the ritual, spoke long and emotionally, almost repentantly, about the trouble he had been having with his neighbors.

During the winter his children had stoned the neighbors’ children while returning from school. Later, two of these children died of measles. The parents consulted an old clairvoyant, who said that Francis had bewitched the children. Meanwhile he had been having trouble with his wife, and he beat her several times. She left him. Soon all her clansmen gathered forces with the irate neighbors and beat Francis until he was nearly dead.

Soon after I arrived in the settlement, I was warned to avoid his place at night because he was carrying a gun and shooting at all prowl- ers. We heard shots on several occasions. Finally, one night in July, the neighbors were drunk, and we were awakened again by shots and the old Seneca war cry. There was swearing and the noise of gravel disturbed by running feet going east along the road toward the neigh- bors, but there were no casualties.

This time Esther Fatty consulted the clairvoyant. ‘Francis was having trouble with his head.’’ He could not sleep. Hemlocks- lying-down conducted several rituals at her request. They met one morning at dawn and sang (gano’iowi’’) for him, because his mind was distraught with worry. Again, one evening Hemlocks-lying-down conducted the Bear Society dance for him. This present Eagle Dance was the third attempt to find a cure for his troubled mind.

Toward the close of Francis’ remarks Sam Fatty (Snipe), his mother’s father; Wood-eater (Bear) (opposite moiety), priest and preacher of the Handsome Lake Revelation; Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (Deer); and Amos Red Eye (Heron) (of the same moiety as Francis) successively walked over to him, grasped his hand and talked to him, giving advice and telling him to mend his ways, to take care of his family, and try to make up with his neighbors, to stay sober, and be of good mind, etc. In this manner they pledged their friendship. Their behavior was not patterned by membership in either moiety, but their role was rather that of old men and chiefs who traditionally act as counselors and peacemakers between the younger people.

The power of Eagle Society ritual to cement social bonds of friend- ship is by no means small. It is, however, noteworthy that certain men present—Francis’ clansman and neighbor Corn-husker (Hawk), the whooper; William Cooper (Snipe), the second singer; and the headman, Hemlocks-lying-down (Turtle), either through dislike or diffidence did not pledge their friendship. However, all except Hem-

20 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156

locks-lying-down, who was acting as conductor and head singer, and the second singer and the dancers spoke during the meeting.®

THE FEAST

Meanwhile, Esther Fatty (Hawk), hostess, and the conductor had arranged the feast. A side of baked pork was brought in a pan and fed first to the dancers, who cried like a couple of crows, as one after the other they picked over it and tore off the best cuts. Hemlocks- lying-down passed it, going counterclockwise, to the members and finally to the dancers again, because they clamored for more. They were fed.

The host, Francis Bowen, helped the conductor carry a wash boiler of corn soup, which they set in the middle of the room. At a signal from the conductor, ‘“‘Come now set down the pails,” everyone present slid a pail across the floor toward the soup.

The recipient of the ritual, Francis Bowen, stirred the soup with a maple paddle and dished several ladlefuls into the conductor’s pail.

Then the conductor filled each of the pails in turn, proceeding in a methodical counterclockwise direction, a ladleful to a pail until the soup was gone. ‘Two pails were filled for the house. Each member rescued his pail and departed, taking along the few crackers which he still had. The dancers, by this time, however, had most of them.

Discussion.—We have purposely noted the clan membership and moiety alinement of those who attended. We find the principal ritual functionaries in the opposite moiety from the recipient and his mother, the sponsor. Informants specify that this must be. We have already noted absence of any spatial separation of the moieties. Although speakers joke with one another and offer gifts to the dancers and other speakers by way of recompense for the evil things they have said about them, in but one case (between Wood-eater and Stick-lodged-in-a- crotch) did ridicule cross moiety lines; Hemlocks-lying-down and other Coldspring informants claim this was accidental. Hemlocks-lying- down remembers speeches in ridicule of the other clan at Cattaraugus, but he has never observed the practice at Coldspring. Then, it would seem, the personalities involved are more important than membership in a particular clan. Wood-eater ridiculed Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, not because he was a Deer, but because he went to sleep.

It is perhaps unfair to lay bare the therapeutic powers of a Seneca medicine society in the light of modern medical knowledge. Never- theless, when I heard 2 years afterward that Francis Bowen had been committed to a mental hospital, 1 wondered what type of aberration the resident physicians had discovered. Ihad built up some faith in

6 “Again, the singers are not supposed to talk, but there is no restriction. Singing is enough. The con- ductor does not speak.’’— (He-strikes-the-rushes, June 1934.)

FEnToNn] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 21

the strength of the societies to bolster self-respect and provide esthetic pleasure for those who believe in their efficacy. Unfortunately Fran- cis Bowen’s difficulty required different treatment.

He “was admitted to (the) hospital in an advanced stage of psy- chosis with syphilitic meningoencephalitis. In spite of intensive treatment, he has shown no response and the outlook is considered rather hopeless. It is too bad that he could not have had proper treatment sufficiently early instead of his tribal rites which you de- scribe. The majority of these cases can be much improved or recov- ered under proper treatment, if gotten early enough.” °

THE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF RESTING-SKY’S CURE

During the first day of the 1934 Midwinter Festival at Coldspring, Resting-sky, a Cayuga of the Turtle Clan, ‘‘put up” an anniversary of his cure by the Eagle Society (pl. 2). He selected Leads-him (ha’nodje‘ne’s), of the Snipe Clan, his wife’s sister’s husband, in the other moiety, to conduct the rite. My informant, Sherman Redeye (SRE), of the Snipe Clan (pl. 3), said it was the conductor’s duty to invite the ones whom Resting-sky intended should come. ‘The invita- tions were privately issued at the longhouse on the first day of the New Year’s Dance (Jan. 1, 1934).

It is up to the conductor to provide singers and dancers. However, SRE (Snipe) did not know he was going to be second singer until he arrived.

Resting-sky, the recipient,the one for whom the ceremony was per- formed, asked Wood-eater (Bear) in his own moiety to give thanks to the Spirit-forces and make the proper announcements.

The conductor secured the services of Great-night, of the Wolf Clan, son of Hemlocks-lying-down (Turtle), as drummer or first singer, be- cause his father had already been chosen for Earth-hiller’s meeting that night. The conductor depended on SRE of the Snipe Clan, in the other moiety, to help Great-night sing, because he knew SRE would be there.

The conductor also chose the dancers. The conductor had some difficulty securing dancers representing both moieties, because of Earth-hiller’s meeting. ‘The dancers are of equalstatus. They were both Bear Clan, but they are supposed to be of different moieties.” He could not find the proper people. Further, he should have had a speech made borrowing one of them from his moiety and then later returning him to his own clan, which he neglected to do.

Resting-sky left the cooking to his wife, It-dips-water (pl. 5), and her sister, the conductor’s wife, the sisters of Corn-husker.

§ Earle V. Gray, M. D., Superintendent, Gowanda State Homeopathic Hospital (correspondence, April 9, 1937).

22 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156 When they had finished their evening meal, the invited guests gath- ered up their tin pails and convened at the house of Resting-sky and

It-dips-water. When they had all assembled, the conductor arranged the seating for the ritual (fig. 2).

fLAGLE DANCE

OR RESTING — SKY

ENTRY | “x? o ‘3 Sie ee =n N 1 YY 240 PRES. h RP SPLAAER SPEAKER ¥ PRIESF — ® SR 40 ? RECIPIENT G /VRST SINGER i ; 7 io bh iv ND SINGER ro) (Ee Se STOVE | @® O.0O Ti 22-25 @ | conoucrTor = WOMEN Wy ¢ GET |), [| CUSTODIA WOMEN DANCER 45 18 19 /7 2/ FAN ] STRIAING S7/CK

DANCERS RATTLE CO BASKET OF CRACKERS HORN RATTLE @ O/SH OF TOBACCO

DAUM [] 44S" B0/LER OF CORN Soup 2RUM BEATER @® PORK FOR FEAST

NV O78

Ficure 2.—Floor plan of Eagle Dance for Resting-sky.

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 23

The following people were present:

Participation in the meeting*

Menm- Moiety bership 1. Resting-sky, Turtle Clan, recipient and sponsor__-_----------- II x 2. Leads-him (ha’nodje-n¢’s), Snipe Clan, messenger and conductor. I xX 3. Wood-eater, Bear Clan, speaker and priest__.____...---------- II x 4. Greai-ment, Wol Clan: first singer... 22.2226 55-52 52 5— II x ot pinks, onipe Clan, second -smgerss 2 2a. Shae 2 oe I x 6. Town-destroyer, Bear Clan; dancer. 25-242 II O 7. He-watches-water, Bear Clan (Snorer’s son), dancer_-___------ II xX 8. Ten-mornings, Bear Clan, first presentation speaker_____-_---- II xX 9. Corn-husker, Hawk Clan, whooper_------------------------ I xX 10. Wm. Cooper, Snipe Clan, second presentation speaker __-_--_--_-- I x 11. Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, Deer Clan, gift custodian___..-__-_-- I xX 12.) lakes-in-a-woman,; Snipe Clan! .- =. 2.2 <. so. ole I xX MatISMOree. AW kre .t Ste Sem co Pe th Se oe Po I ».« has CGleVNnee + Denver CHAtr see. asm, ts re ee Pee SR Ea ae II ».<¢ th Nallime-word. Cayies.af Vurtie Clan oe ee II x 16. It-dips-water, Hawk Clan, matron and cook__---------------- I x 17. Voice-above, Hawk Clan, my interpreter (pl. 4)_-__-_-_-_-_-- I O 18. Full-of-thistles, Deer Clan, wife of 15_._._.._-..--..---_-_-_-- I x 19. Sister of 16 and 9, Hawk Clan, matron and cook__------------ I x aUnoucK-on-water,, Beaver Clan. 2... 22-22-—-2oecyccae enc ce II O 2 W.. INL ES.

22-25. Sundry odd women and children in the bedroom with Duck- on-water’s wife, daughter of 16, who is sick, but this cere- mony is not for her. However, she may, as member, de- rive benefit from hearing the songs.

*X=member; O=nonmember.

Again, the following facts, bearmg upon the problem of moiety alinement, emerge from an analysis of the floor plan. The recipient secures a “headman” or conductor from the opposite moiety, but the first singer and the speaker and priest are of his own moiety. My informants explained this as convenience, necessity overriding conven- tion. The singers represent each moiety, but the dancers are of the same clan; however, one of them serves for the first moiety, and the preseptation speakers are of each moiety, conforming to native theory. The whooper and gift custodian are of the opposite moiety to the recipient, but this is accidental, although desirable. Again there is no spatial separation of the moieties into a dual division. Once more, the greater part of the functionaries and participants are the close relatives of the host or his wife, and all who had any active part, with the possible exception of one dancer, who, I think, belongs, are members of the society. My interpreter definitely stated that she does not belong. She merely went along with her husband to her mother’s house.

24 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buy 156

THANKSGIVING

The Speaker gave thanks to all the Spirit-forces from the earth to the Creator, and asked a blessing for all those present. He an- nounced the purpose of the gathering to renew the association of Resting-sky, who has been feeling badly, and the Dew Eagle, as he thought that it would help him.

TOBACCO INVOCATION

The conductor took the wands with the rattles attached from the drying rack above the stove and handed them to the speaker, or priest, in this case, who then stood before the fire, holding this ritual equipment so that the Dew Eagle, the bird to whom this ritual is addressed, would know he is talking to him. He committed the to- bacco to the fire a pinch at a time, employing the same prayer he had used for Francis Bowen, but he did not sing over the first song.

ASSIGNMENT OF ROLES AND PARAPHERNALIA

When he had finished, the priest returned the wands to the con- ductor, who in turn handed one set to Ten-mornings so that he might present them to He-watches-water (Bear), the dancer in his own moiety and, in this case, his clan.

The headman appointed Corn-husker (Hawk) whooper. It is his duty to whoop (pa:a:’) just previous to, and as a signal for, the sing- ing.” He appointed William Cooper, Snipe Clan, to present the other wand and rattle to the second dancer, his own son, who was dancing for that moiety. Lastly, he appointed old ‘“‘Stick-lodged-in- a-crotch gift custodian, setting the basket of soda crackers before him. The former remarked that maybe the latter could stay awake if he had a job.”

Here the dancers entered, coming downstairs in full costume with a round red spot painted on each cheek. Instead of wearing the old Seneca headdress with the single revolving feather, they wore quasi- Plains Indian headdresses, which they wear on the road with “Indian shows,” and leggings similar to chaps. All the old Seneca costumes have long since either gone into graves or they have been sold to mu- seums. Now, although the old people know what they should wear, the dancers wear makeshift “play’’ Indian costumes. The old people disliked my raising this question because it revealed a spurious element in the modern ceremonies which Wood-eater likes to regard as genuine.

THE RITUAL

(1) Corn-husker whooped and Song I commenced.—Ten-mornings beat the floor with the striking stick and returned it to the headman as

He-strikes-the-rushes says this is the war whoop, but SRE denies this is the same as the war whoop

Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 25

the singing ceased. He made the conventional speech about being invited to dance, and then he handed the wand and rattle to his clans- man, the dancer.

(2) Corn-husker whooped the second time and Song IT followed.— William Cooper (Snipe) of the other moiety, struck the floor and spoke. He said of his son, ‘‘ He is not as good a dancer as I am; I can still beat him. However, he thinks he is pretty good.”’ And then addressing his son: ‘“‘Do the best you can to beat that other dancer.” Then he handed him the fan and rattle. Then he passed the striking stick back to the conductor.

(3) The Whooper uttered his third contribution and Song III com- menced.—Before the singing started the conductor had handed the cracker basket to Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch, when he made the other appointments. During the third song the conductor handed the stick to him. We will call him gift-custodian, but he has no official title, according to my informants. He merely talks and distributes crackers, first, to the dancers; second, to the singers (this time the second singer first); third, to the whooper; fourth, to the host; and fifth, to the conductor; but this last is not necessary.

(4) Whoop and Song IV.—The whooper always yelps before the songs.

The dance begins here.

In all of the songs for the Eagle Dance the drummer sings the song through once alone, accompanying himself on the water drum. The second time through, singing the same words, the second singer joins him, using the horn rattle. The dancers commence on the fourth song, just previous to the second round of speeches. They wait until both singers have been over the song together.

SRE says, ‘“‘The dancers are supposed to sway on their chairs, then they jump down and crouch on the floor like Dew Eagles and advance by hopping, turning from side to side; when the song is repeated, they bend down weaving their shoulders in imitation of Dew Eagles picking food off the ground.”

Then they retreat and the song ends with three quick, rapid beats, which the dancers duplicate with their feet and rattles. About this time the speaker strikes the floor or, anciently, a striped striking pole, and the music stops.

Now the second round of speeches begins.

According to informants, William Cooper spoke. ‘The stick went back to him, and then to Ten-mornings, and then to Stick-lodged-in- a-crotch.”’ According to my notes above, the order was Ten-mornings, William, and Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch in the first round. William made a speech to the man who put up the feast, Resting-sky, telling

26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

him to behave himself and have good luck. He said, ‘Behave your- self. I wish you luck that you may be fortunate and keep well.”

(5) Whoop and Song V.—<According to informants, Ten-mornings said the same thing as William Cooper.

(6) Whoop and Song VI.—Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch said the same thing; the previous time he said he was giving out crackers. However, my informants were somewhat reluctant to tell all that each one said, preferring to give me the pattern of what they were supposed to say.

Up to this point crackers are distributed only to the dancers, singers, whooper, and the host, and possibly the conductor. This completes the second round of speeches.

(7) Whoop and Song VII.—Now the floor is open for anyone to talk.

Takes-in-a-woman (Snipe) made the same ritual speech as his pre- decessors and gave crackers to the same people.

SRE says, ‘‘We do not make fun of the other moiety here when we talk in the Eagle Dance, but I have heard that they do it over at New- town [Cattaraugus Reservation] (Parker, 1913 b, pp. 124-125).

(8) Whoop and Song VIII.—Snorer (Hawk), an old man who form- erly lived at Newtown and is generally out of sorts with everyone wherever he lives, talked at length of his present social status.

I hear all kinds of stories about myself: that Iam pretending that I am sick. I wish whoever said these things would suffer like I am suffering; then maybe they would not say them. I only laugh when I hear these stories. I like to come to doings like this, only sometimes I am unable; I am so lame that I am hardly able to get about any more.

(Afterward, to me my informant commented, ‘‘I did not listen to him. I do not like to hear things like that at a medicine society meeting. It makes bad feelings, this gossip. Snorer always says, ‘Everybody talks too much’; he even says that in the longhouse.’’)

Snorer distributed crackers to the necessary functionaries, including the conductor with whom he is at times in good rapport, and the latter has much respect for the old tyrant’s erudition, which is considerable.

(9) Whoop and Song [X.—The conductor passed the stick to Corn- husker, the whooper, who made the customary remarks which conven- tion demanded. He distributed the crackers to those whom he should, and to me, a guest, saying that I had come a long way to be amongst them once more and I must be getting hungry. He further said ‘He is an Indian in spirit, even if his face is white.” (The remark illustrates the pleasant raillery which pervades the whole affair.)

(10) Whoop and Song X.—Cold-voice (Beaver) struck for silence. This was his first speech and one is not supposed to extemporize until the second.

(11) Whoop and Song XI.—Wood-eater (Bear), who had made the

FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 27

first prayer of thanksgiving and the tobacco-throwing invocation, addressed Resting-sky, the host.

“Hach man speaks differently, but in the main he says about the same thing to the man for whom the feast is held’? (SRE).

(12) Whoop and Song XIJI.—Falling-world, a Cayuga of the Turtle Clan, ‘‘did not do much preaching to his host, but he talked about his wife. His jokes are too strong to suit the public. My ears would burn if S. said things like that about me. He said, ‘My wife is always kicking me in the shins so that I will be laid up with sore legs® and she will be able to attend the New Year’s dance alone. She is cross and is always hitting me with something.’ All the time he was saying that his wife was there. (However, she seemed amused.) He then told Resting-sky and my mother, It-dips-water, to remain together until either one of them dies” (CRE).

(13) Whoop and Song XIII.—SRE gave the signal and talked. He said what I have quoted above (see (4)). Later, being my informant, he added, ‘‘If he [Resting-sky] is sick, it (my wish)is supposed to make him well.”” SRE was the second singer, and did not have to speak. The first singer, Great-night, did not speak, but it is not required of the first singer. He is a peculiar chap, inclined to moroseness, and is of a vengeful disposition. He is a fine singer and, like his father, a fine craftsman. At times he is quite jovial. However, singing is enough and the first singer has fulfilled his duty without speaking.

(14) Whoop and Song XIV.—It-dips-water (Hawk), wife of the host, commenced to talk, but her sister started kidding her and she was unable to finish.

(15) Whoop and Song XV.—Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (Deer) woke up in time to talk a third time. The headman was about to prod him with the stick. This elicited much amusement and laughter. He began to poke fun at Corn-husker (Hawk), the whooper, a man of his own moiety, by alluding to the “possum” which Corn-husker had claimed, at a previous Eagle Dance, that he met every time he went into the woods hunting. Corn-husker said that when the possum smiled at him he had good luck. (Corn-husker had told about his possum at a meeting, held the week before in the same house, for SRE and his father, Wood-eater. This is one of many stories Corn-husker is reputed to have told to amuse people. He always says his stories do not hurt anyone, since they are not true. They are merely in- tended as jokes.) Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch concluded by wishing Resting-sky would live to grow old.

8 Sore legs is a symptom of being sick with the disease the Eagle causes. Whereas the content of his speech is different from that of Snorer, in character, itis thesame. They both came from Cattaraugus, and he is more true to his local tradition than Snorer in ridiculing someone in the opposite moiety, who happens to be

his wife. However, he does not exalt his own clan. 982306—53 3

28 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

There were no crackers left by this time, so the speaker promised Resting-sky a 5-cent cigar the next time they were in the city together. Everyone laughed, knowing his reputation for stinginess.

“Everyone knew he was safe, for they will never be in the city together, not now anyway” (CRE).

(16) Whoop and Song XVI.—Corn-husker reached for the stick, as was expected, and made his second utterance by way of rebuttal. Naturally his subject was “my possum.”’ ‘People make more of a story than what I said, because they know it is not true. You all know me. I am the worst liar around here. I wish you would not talk any more about my possum when anyone has another meeting like this.’”? Then he addressed his blessing to the host.

The dancers, by this time, had most of the crackers and had stored them under their chairs in the original cracker boxes provided by the host. Nevertheless, Corn-husker had a good supply given to him, in the capacity of whooper, and he gave these to the dancers, singers, and host, saying, “I am afraid to carry them: a ghost might chase me.’? He donated two crackers apiece to the functionaries. Corn- husker is frequently troubled by ghosts coming up behind him on the road.®

(17) Whoop and Song XVII.—This was Bill Cooper’s (Snipe) third speech. ‘I do not really wish that Resting-sky will grow too old, as Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch hopes. When people grow too old they are not able to help themselves or do anything.” (My inform- ants interpolated: Takes-in-a-woman (Snipe) had an Eagle Dance meeting once and Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch said, ‘‘When a man becomes old, every time he eats a good meal he gets sleepy and goes to sleep.’’) William Cooper concluded, ‘I think ‘Flying’ [the old man’s boyhood name] must be pretty well off and full all the time, because every time I look at him he is always asleep. He must be filled up all the time, for he always goes to sleep.”

I might add here that Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch or ‘lying’ is one of the head religious officers in his moiety. He is usually asleep in councils and during the preaching of the Handsome Lake Revelation, of which he is one of the custodians. It makes a good joke. He usually wakes up, however, in time to drowsily intone his contri- butions.

(18) Whoop and Song XVIII.—By this time the dancers were becoming tired. Ten-mornings (Bear) talked for the third time. His subject was the longhouse, and he urged the people to go there and help out the leaders, meaning the conductors, Levi Snow (Heron)

* See Case II, p 43. He referred here to the typical magie flight incident in Seneca folklore where the hero casts out gifts behind him to distract his pursuers. It is believed that if chased by ghosts, one may impede their speed by throwing bread to them.

Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 29

and his own brother, Arrow (Bear), who are running the New Year’s Festival. Ten-mornings is a Faith-keeper. Then he concluded, “Resting-sky is lucky in having so many people come here. One man came from way off in the East |a jibe at me]. I live just a little way this side of him. [He lives east of the longhouse, across the river in Crick’s Run.] He came all the way to see these doings; it is a good idea. The conductor came from way up near Red House to help out Resting-sky, the host. I wish the meeting would last all night.’’

(19) Whoop and Song XIX.—Cold-voice made his second speech. He preached to Resting-sky, joking him; then he said, ‘‘He has lost his brother (died last winter) and sister and is all alone. He should try and forget that and be good and go on with his work and live peaceably with his wife.”’

The conductor rose and said the following song would be the last, the one for laying down the wands or fans.

(20) Whoop and Song XX.—Following this last song the dancers left their rattles and fans on the floor and retired. At meetings like this one “when there are a good many speakers who fight for the striking stick, the dancers do not have to work hard. Other- wise, they must continue until someone strikes the pole or floor.

“The host should immediately stand and thank those who have said good things to him. Resting-sky did not do this. He should stand and thank the people of both moieties who have striven to beat each other at wishing him good luck.”

Resting-sky, the host, turned to Wood-eater, the Speaker, asking him to talk once more. Wood-eater gave thanks to all the people who had helped: (1) the dancers, (2) the singers, (8) the conductor, (4) all the people who came to talk, (5) all the women (members), and (6) all those who came to look on. Then he asked the four “angels” to help them to arrive safely home, that no accidents befall them on their way. He gave thanks to the “‘maker’’ without calling him by name; and he hoped that everyone would be well by the next dawn. ‘Let everybody in this crowd give thanks to each other.” It is finished.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FEAST

The distribution of the feast by the conductor follows. First, he hands out seven pieces of meat: one apiece to the dancers; one each to the singers; one to the whooper; a woman put one in the conductor’s pail; and he gave the last piece to the tobacco-thrower. Second, there was a pig’s head, but in this case it was a roast shoulder

10 “Jokes about long journeys were common in the old Newtown meetings.” Snorer usually has this meeting early in the morning. Anciently the society met out-of-doors at dawn.

30 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL 156

of pork, as a head was not available. The host has the first bite, then the dancers, singers, and last, the crowd. It is passed in a counterclockwise direction ‘“‘to the right,” that is, the conductor always has the benches on his right as he proceeds. ‘To go around to the left,’ clockwise, is considered incorrect and means death or evil.

Snorer follows the old tradition of picking up the head in his hands, turning it over and biting it; others, in the newer school, tear off a piece between their fingers. The older men most consistently grasp the whole head and tear off portions with their teeth. Everyone is supposed to say ga’’ga’’ in imitation of the crow, and especially the greatraven. My informant said that the first time he sang he took an ear and ripped it clear to the nose. Everyone laughed.

Anciently the head was served in a bark bowl, or the conductor merely passed it in his hands. People may say ga’’’ to make someone stop. The young people object to Snorer’s dirty hands and avaricious temperament. ‘He used to go outside during the meeting and then return. He never washed his hands, and when he handled the pig’s head many objected. Everyone said he had dirty hands.”

When Snorer has been conductor he has increased his evil reputation. “He used to pass the head around once and then put it aside for himself. He has earned the name gwi’sgwisgo-wa” [the great hog]. Conductors are supposed to pass the feast around until it is entirely finished, or the company is satisfied.”

When chided, Snorer has threatened to return to Newtown, Catta- raugus Reservation, ‘‘but the people over there say they do not want him back because then they could not have any medicine meetings, because he takes all the pig’s head for himself.”

The third part of the feast is always corn soup. This is the same type as cooked for False-faces. It is hulled-corn soup made from the white squaw corn. It is the duty of the host to ladle some from the wash boiler into the conductor’s pail. The conductor then calls for the members to set down their pails and he fills all the pails brought by the members and guests, which they have shoved out on the floor. Some is dished out for the house. At a signal each person retrieves his pail and goes home.

Discussion.—Even at pain of some repetition, I have presented the raw data from two meetings which served to establish the frame on which, during later field work, I hung most of the meat of this paper. This particular meeting not only demonstrates how consistently the local pattern of a ritual is repeated from time to time, but there are also several interesting discrepancies in the matter of required moiety alinement which are at variance with native theory. This type of information should stand as a caution against the ethnologist’s tend- ency to oversystematize his description of a native culture. There

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 31

are rules, but they are not always adhered to. We have also shown how Corn-husker, Wood-eater, and Snorer found expression for their individuality in this Eagle Dance. ‘Truly, the type of thing they did was patterned by tradition, by the history of the ceremony, but the content of their behavior as individuals had its roots in each one’s individual history. What Goldenweiser has called “involution,” or the telescoping of repeated behavior patterns, is well illustrated in this ritual. The same songs, the same type of speeches, the same old jokes are all heard again and again; but not so much what one does, but how one does it is the important thing to the individual participant in the culture. This constant repetition at times is even boring to the Indians. He-strikes-the-rushes told me that one of the reasons he moved away from Allegany was because he became “sick and tired’’ of the con- tinual repetition of the same old jokes at successive Eagle Dances which that winter followed one another night after night.

LATER CELEBRATIONS AT ALLEGANY

The ritual of the Eagle Dance is gone through many times in the course of a year at Coldspring, so that participants come to sense the pattern of sequence which guides the program and to forget the details after a meeting. The same process affects the observer. At first he sees all the detail and misses the pattern. As he learns he looks for the fine points and forgets the details. My own observations of Eagle Dance at Coldspring have been supplemented by those of Charles E. Congdon, of Salamanca, N. Y.; M. H. Deardorff, of Warren, Pa.; and the late Dr. Frank G. Speck (Speck, 1950). We have all shared observations in correspondence and discussion, and Speck’s first im- pressions are published and supplemented by the account of the Seneca.

Clayton C. White has been Deardorff’s principal annalist at Cold- spring, and his records of ceremonial events are quite accurate and clearly portray the ‘“‘doings.”” His language is equally picturesque, but requires some editing for the general reader. His notes describe two meetings of the Eagle Society in February 1942: a family feast, and a cure for a neighbor’s daughter.

Wednesday Evening, February 4, 1942, we have a gane’’gwi’e-’, or Eagle Dance. This [is] Big Bird Dance. We have [it] at our home. [Two leaders were appointed] William Cooper and Lendsay Doudy. These two are [supposed to] notify to the Bird Dancer members to come to the home of Mrs. A. E. White in the evening.

First Albert Jones made the Thanking Speech. And [continuing] on after that, he also [told] the Members who are to be Benefit [beneficiaries] of this dance. There are four [such] persons: Alice E. White, Clayton White, Sally George, Rudolph George. ‘‘ . . . and now you members know where to be wishing for it [to whom to address your pleas] to have good luck.”

And after this he also [tended] to throwing the IndianTobacco in the Fire. And [the priest through his prayers is believed] to be notifying the Birds. These are

32 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLn. 156

Big Birds and they are flying way above the clouds. (So this is not the Eagle. For this Bird don’t come to the ground. The Birds are bright red and some are white as snow. The Red Bird is more powerful.)

And the singers are Richard J. John, and the helper, Jake Logan.

And there are four dancers: Avery Jimmerson, John Deer, Kenneth Fatty, and Wilton Cooper.

There was a good crowd and all were good speakers.

And the Flute Singer, Walter Jimmerson.

And the Halloa [Hollerer-Whooper], Cornelius Abram.

Some interesting facts on participation can be gleaned from Clayton White’s record. It was a family feast for members of the Wolf clan, in the lineage of Alice White, including her son, her daughters’ daugh- ter, and the latter’s son. She selected as conductor William Cooper (Snipe Clan), a man of the opposite moiety. Since it was to be a large affair with four dancers, the conductor had an assistant, or coconduc- tor of the opposite moiety, L. Doudy (Beaver Clan), on the same side as thesponsor. The speaker and the priest, Albert Jones (Snipe Clan), is of the opposite moiety, but the relationship may be fortuitous, since he is a good speaker and possibly the only one available. But note that the singers are of opposite moieties—R. J. John (Beaver) and Jake Logan (Snipe)—the first being of the sponsor’s side. But Dick John is a good singer (cf. Kurath’s transcription of his records, and my text below).

The dancers were equally divided between moieties—two Bears and two Hawks. It would have been nice to have Clayton’s account of the speeches, but that they were routine, I judge from his omitting them.

But note the presence of a “Flute Singer,’’? Walter Jimmerson of Wolf Clan, who presumably blew the whistle in imitation of the birds.

The last role, whooper, fell to the Beaver Clan.

In general, it may be observed that custom has assigned the prin- cipal roles to persons of the opposite moiety to the sponsors, and dual roles are equally shared between moieties. But the success of the ceremony depends on a good singer.

Of perhaps greater interest are Clayton White’s answers to some questions which Deardorff put to him concerning Eagle Dance. He traces the origin of the rite to the warpath, he relates how Handsome Lake, the Seneca prophet, received supernatural sanction for its con- tinuance, and how it survives as a curing society, Membership comes through a dream about the mythical birds which he describes again, and he concludes by citing recent proof of the bird’s power.

And now about the Gane’’gwi’e’’, or the Eagle Dance. [It derives from] , . . the Indian War days. These Big Birds gave their full power and help to the Sen- eca Indian Men in their fighting. But [after the Indian wars were over] when [in 1799] the Four Angels (the messengers of the Creator) were teaching to the Handsome Lake, they tell him to tell his people that this Big Bird Dance shall be changed [into] the way they are doing it these days. And so they changed it.

Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 33

And the Four Angels fully approved. Before the Four Angels [talked] to the Handsome Lake, the Seneca only talked [in meetings] of how to fight, of how to scalp, and they also [were] telling of how many scalps a man has. In those days he is a great Indian if he have a great many scalps. This is why the Four Angels... prohibited [boasting on scalp records], and they say, “This will stop, and it must be changed.”” And so the People take it [and do so] the Four Angels say.

And now at this time the people only [have Eagle Dance and speak] to wish [the sponsor] to have good luck, and to tell the Big Birds to take it away all the Bad Luck and the Bad Enemy coming to the Persons who are having a Bird Dance. And also they have a little Joke. So this is the way it is now. To this Big Bird Dance the Four Angels have given full approval. It is because they have great power. They have power to help in this world even if the person is very sick. The Big Birds have power to help the sick person to get well again if the person belongs to the Bird Society.

Mostly [membership in] this Society is come in by the Dream. And also some of them come by the Fortune Teller. And if this Big Bird is not very [satisfied with the behavior] of the Person who belongs to this Society, it is just as bad. Because this Big Bird has great power to bring the bad luck and bad Enemy to to the Person who is not doing right by them.

Now I am going to [tell] the truth. This Big Bird is not the Eagle. There is another kind of bird. This kind of bird does not come down to the ground but once in a great while, but when they do come down to the ground, they mostly come to the top of a High Hill or a Mountain. And this Bird is of a Bright Red Color, and there is another all White Color. There are two kinds. But they are the same Nation. This Bird in truth has a big power.

Our people have good evidence [of this] just last Wednesday night, February 18, 1942. Mr. Cornelius Abram and his little daughter had this Bird Dance to their home. And this little Baby Girl is very sick for about a week. So they got the Fortune Teller (Sara Snow of Quaker Bridge) to look of what is the trouble to this little baby girl. [This was a last resort] Because the [White] Doctor can not understand [the nature of] what is [troubling] this little girl. So [the parents resort to] the Fortune Teller. She says, ‘‘This little baby girl is not sick, but she will pass away very soon now if you do not have Bird Dance. There is a Big Bird [hovering] above her. Hear now [this] is on account [of the fact] that Cornelius Abram belongs to this Bird Society, and he didn’t have the Bird Dance for a long time now. So this Big Bird got tired of waiting for him too long now. So the Big Bird got to this little Baby girl’s.”

So after this Fortune Teller tell them, and they hurry to have it the Bird Dance. And this time that the little baby girl is better. Now that is good proof of [the fact] about this Big Bird have a power. [Clayton C. White to M. H. Deardorff, 1942.]

If Handsome Lake foresaw that the Bird Dance would change from a ritual for boasting on scalp records to a medicine society of persons whom the Big Birds had accepted for membership by making them sick, he probably did not anticipate that the Society would include non-Indians. I can think of no better measure of acceptance than the ceremonial sanction of the Eagle Dance for three adopted White men. Adoption in the Turtle Clan has been followed by acceptance in the Eagle Society. Congdon, Deardorff, and Speck have all been accorded both honors. The first two gentlemen were taken in as

34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLt. 156

“friends”; the last had a dream, was accorded a ‘“‘cure,’’ and a year later a renewal.

The only record I have of an Eagle Society meeting held at Chaun- cey Johnny John’s in August 1942 to celebrate a ‘friendship’ between “Big-canoe” and ‘‘He-is-carrying-an-ax,’”’ consists of a series of photo- graphs taken at crucial stages of the ceremony. The photographs were made to illustrate this monograph. As illustrations they are not all successful, but the series covers the ritual pattern at the following points:

(1) Invocation. Wood-eater, speaker and priest, goes to the stove and puts tobacco in the fire and prays to the Dew Eagles to protect these friends with long life; Deep-night, the conductor, sits by during the invocation. Others listen. (Two strings of Indian tobacco (Nicotiana rustica L.) hang over the stove drying) (pl. 6, 1).

(2) After the presentation of fans to the dancers, the second round of speeches is addressed to the Dew Eagles. Members sit with bowed heads listening intently to Chief Jesse Armstrong (Bear Clan); Leslie Bowen (Hawk Clan), dancer; C. E. Congdon; M. H. Deardorff ; Richard Johnny John, first singer; and Ed. Coury, helper (pl. 7, 1).

(3) The Eagle Dancers crouch and sway with the song. Singers, speaker, and host sit along the wall. Note the feathered fans and tiny horn rattles which here replace the usual gourd rattle at Cold- spring. The striking stick lies on the floor (pl. 7, 2).

(4) Each speaker puts down the striking stick, which is a cane, speaks, and distributes crackers from a splint market basket to the dancers.

(5) On the last song, the dancers lay down the feather fans and retire (pl. 6, 2).

(6) The conductor passes the pig head counterclockwise, starting with speaker and singers, who cry like crows, and pick at the meat (pl. 8, 7).

(7) At a cry from the conductor, the members put down their pails, which he fills with hulled-corn soup from a wash boiler, going counter- clockwise, a dip to a pail, until all the pails are filled equally.

(8) The members pick up their pails and scatter like birds in every direction (pl. 8, 2). Neighboring Whites often ask why Indians are continually carrying pails on the road at night.

Speck, following a convenient dream of “large birdlike bodies .. . across the sky in rapid flight,”’ was feted by the Eagle Society on the night of March 10, 1949. Fast-talker of the Beaver Clan was his host. Speck’s account, published in Primitive Man (1950), lists the participants, and gives their Indian and English names, their clan and moiety, and role in the ceremony. He also gives the seating arrange- ment. The arrangements seem to have preserved the proper balance

FEntTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 35

between the sponsor or patient and the main role fulfillments. An exception to the rule of conductor being of the opposite moiety to the person honored may be noted, but singers and dancers were properly apportioned between moieties.

Speck’s account of the performance of the ritual leaves nothing to be desired. As always he is the master of detail and catches the essence of behavior even when he may not understand the language. Speck was well prepared by having studied the Cayuga version of the rite. The preparations and ritual equipment are quite detailed even as to cost. What is impressive, moreover, is the detailed reporting of speeches in his honor. What participants said to Speck in Seneca and was afterward interpreted to him convey the close relationship between tutelary and patient. One speaker describes the birds as being of three colors, though not seen since White discovery. The birds appear only in dreams and may be reached with sacred tobacco. The bird would help him in his work. He is assured of the good will of the members.

Another speaker, who always seizes such opportunities to preach a sermon, admonishes the members on their sacred duty and reminds Big Porcupine (Speck) to renew his membership from time to time with a feast.

Speck encountered the same difficulty I have experienced in after- ward getting speakers to recall their remarks. Once a ceremony is over, it is finished and participants do not want to go over it. There must be, however, as the records of meetings indicate, individuals who suffer from a retentive memory and lay up speeches for the next meeting. (See the case of Snorer, Corn-husker who wanted them to forget his possum, and He-strikes-the-rushes at Tonawanda.)

Apples as well as crackers were distributed after speeches. When the presents gave out, money was substituted. One woman speaker gave him a dime to treasure as ‘‘medicine.” The meeting Speck attended was unusual in having two women who spoke. Although permitted to speak, it has been my experience that women almost never speak at the Eagle Dance.

Nothing else in Speck’s account is extraordinary except his con- cluding comment: ‘‘Memories of the Eagle Dance given for my benefit . . . bring forth soft and pleasant thoughts marking a mile- stone in an ethnologist’s background of experience . . . I can aver that their ceremonial ministrations gave me benefit .. .”’ (Speck, 1950, p. 59). Think how the Iroquois must feel, for they take their religion seriously.

Another Eagle Dance was held for Big Porcupine at the Midwinter Festival of 1950. Membership in a Seneca medicine society carries an annual obligation of renewal, else the person becomes sick. Speck

36 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Buu. 156

and the Seneca felt that he had been improved by the first ceremony.

As a member of the Eagle Society, Speck was given a set of feather fans, and the next year he was to receive a set of rattles which were being made for him and which he was to put in use each time he sponsored a feast for the Society. Accordingly, he brought the Eagle bundle with him when he came up from Philadelphia to Red House on January 20, 1950, for the Midwinter Festival at Coldspring Longhouse.

Speck wore himself out in the preliminaries and collapsed on the first day of the Festival, January 22. When I arrived the following Friday for the sixth night, when the Husk Faces arrive to climax the ceremonies, the Longhouse officials were greatly concerned over Speck’s condition.

Speck lay ill throughout the Festival. On the last day of the Festival, four of the ritual holders, two men and their wives, accom- panied me to see Speck. His last request to me was a modest concern over an obligation to renew Eagle Dance. It is gratifying that his Seneca friends were impelled to go through with the ceremony while Speck was yet so near them. They sensed that he too felt it would be worth while. One of them quietly took the feather fans and the other couple accepted responsibility to arrange for the cere- mony and prepare the feast—cook the corn and bean soup, boil the meat, provide apples and crackers for the dancers, and get Indian tobacco for the invocation. They knew that the sponsor was ob- viously near the end of his road, but, the old people say, ‘‘Eagle Dance has revived persons before, even on the brink of the grave.” At least Speck was able to return to Philadelphia before he took the long trail a week later (Seneca of Coldspring Longhouse, 1950, pp. 60-61; Hallowell, 1951).

Perhaps our finest record of an Eagle Dance is the account by the Seneca of Coldspring Longhouse of the Eagle Dance held at the home of Albert and Geneva Jones, Wednesday night, February 1, 1950, in which the Society did its best—‘‘all we could’’—for a sick member. The account was transmitted afterward to Mrs. Speck by the Indians ibid., pp. 61-64). A big crowd attended the ‘‘doings” and a record was kept of what was said. The pattern of the ritual stands out clearly in this account:

1. Greeting and Thanksgiving to Creator, and his workers.

2. Tobacco invocation to Dew Eagle, asking his help. Members smoke tobacco.

3. Introductory songs. First speaker presents fan and rattle to dancer. © Same procedure for second dancer.

Third speaker puts out crackers and apples for the members to use in striking. Urged not to waste the music and use a certain stick.

FENTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 37

4. Dance starts on the fourth song. Twelve speakers interrupt as many songs by striking. Appeal to sponsor to keep on believing and express faith that Dew Eagles have power and will to help him. Sponsor will be up and around soon. Another puts his voice with the one who threw tobacco. A young man imparts the analogy of his own vigor. Even the timid speak. ‘‘Sa-da- ga-ah will help you because you believe in them. I ask them to remove all obstacles from your path, keep winds pure around you and keep you healthy. They helped you a year ago and they will again. They are powerful and they know you are thinking of them. (To the people.) You came to see the New Year’s dance and to have Ga-nay-gwa-ayk—but was stricken with sickness. You are a firm believer in it so he is sure the doings here will help you as it did before.’”? (Passes out crackers.) 5. Closing. The conductor thanks the members for coming out of respect for their friend. He adds his voice to the hope of others. The crackers and apples are now all distributed. The sponsor ‘‘is not here to receive your individual medicine.” 6. The fourteenth song is for laying down the fans. The speaker now thanks the participants: dancers, singers, all who took part. The speaker thanks the Creator and the four messengers to see that all the people get home safely. 7. Feast. Meat is passed. Corn soup is given out.

THE SONGS "

The songs of the Eagle Dance as they are sung at Coldspring were recorded in 1941 for the Library of Congress by Richard Johnny John and his grandfather, Chauncey. Water drum and horn rattle are the respective instruments of the singer and his assistant. These are the old man’s songs (Record No. 56, Fenton Collection of 1941, L. C.). They were shortened for purposes of recording to get them all on two sides of a record.

(1) yowehanee yowehanee yo’owehane yo’owehane yo’owehane :][DC, repeat first word five times

and repeat.]

(2) weya’a weya’a wahe’eya’a heyo’ ng’:] ya’a’a, heyo-ng’ weheya heyong:] [DC] [End]

(3) yohong’9’e yohong yohong yohong’9’9 yohanondiyawe’i hong’o’o : (6 times)] [DC]

(4) weya :] waheya weheng :] ya’a heyong ;]

(5) yahowe hane’i :] wehane:]] yahowe hane’i wehane:][DC] [End]

11 For the musical notation, see Kurath’s supplement to this paper.

38 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

(6) ya’aha heyo’ong heyong :] weya heya heyo’ong :]] (7) nigosa nigosa’a hanehe:] yowega’nowe’e ya hanehe :] [DC] [End] (8) yahaheyong :] yahaheyono yahaheyong yahaheyong:] 4 times :]] [DC] (9) yaheyong’9 heyong :] waheya heyong heyong:]] (10) wiya’a ha’a’a:] wiya ha’/ne-he- yo’o howiya ha’a’a wiya’a ha’a’a:] wiya hane-he::]] (11) yaweyong weyong :] waheya yaweyong weyong :] [DC] (12) hongdiyo ya’a he’e :] “Shortest song of all; different. ya’a honodiyo ya’a :]] (13) weyaneng weyaneng’g he’e’e ya’a, he’e’eh weyaneng’o weyaneng’9 he’e’e [he’e] : ] (14) wigosa wigosa’a hanehe:] (Record 56 A) yowega’nowe’e ya hanehe :] [DC] End] (15) neyanen¢’ goyaha’a nehe :] neyanene’ goyaha’a nehe :]-yeh :] [DC] [End] (16) wahe’ya’a heyo’ong :] wiye’e’e :] wahe’ya’a wahe’ya’a heyo’ong :] [DC] (17) ya’ne ya’ne goya haweya goya’haweyong’9 :] (18) Last song for laying down the feather fans. The third and last time, slower, when they lay down the fans. yowadjine gono’odiyawe ya’ ha’he-heyo’ong yowadjine gong’odiyawe heyong:] [DC 3 times] End: yahowiha: ha he:- heyo’ong

THE PARTICIPATING PERSONALITIES AT COLDSPRING

THE EAGLE DANCE AS A VEHICLE FOR PERSONALITY EXPRESSION

When one knows the actual people who perform the Eagle Dance ritual, individual behavior variations within a more or less formal- ized ceremony are expected, and the form and content of two meet- ings will differ somewhat by their presence or absence. I have select- ed five men and a woman from Coldspring whom I know fairly well. Three of the men were present at both meetings I attended at Cold- spring. Two, Wood-eater (pl. 9) and Corn-husker (pl. 10), performed the same offices twice. Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (pl. 11) partici- pated in both meetings, and Snorer (pl. 12) was present only at the second. Hemlocks-lying-down (pl. 13) was conductor and singer for the first meeting, but his son replaced him as head singer at Resting- sky’s “doings.” He sang that night at Earth-hiller’s (pl. 14), who

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 39

attended neither of the two described meetings, but, because she also held a meeting on the second night of the new year, and because she leads another faction in the community, she limited Resting-sky’s meeting by a prior choice of dancers.

The reader will find other personality references in the proceedings of the actual meetings.

No attempt is made here to analyze and classify these individuals according to any of the systems of psychiatry. In the first place, I am operating with an insufficient amount of biographical data. Further- more, by training I am not an analyst. Second, the field work predated the several series of projective tests now inuse. The purpose of these sketches is different. They serve to introduce six individuals whose past history of interpersonal relations affected their attitudes and behavior during two Eagle Dance meetings, which I attended. I have assembled observations and remarks around these selected individuals that in some way explain each one’s position and status with reference to the group. Elsewhere in the text, particularly in the general chap- ter, I cite their experiences in joining the Eagle Society; I note gaps in their knowledge and quote their accounts as they gave them to me. My informants were the best available. In fact, at Coldspring they included all the leaders and many passive participants of the rituals. What these individuals actually did and said in meetings of the Eagle Society was determined first by the history of the ritual, a cultural phenomenon prescribing limits to their behavior, and secondly by their reactions to each other as determined by their own individual histories within the life at Coldspring community. The subjects of these cases have all since died and the cases afford a general perspective on Iroquois personality.

I endeavored to learn how Seneca culture has affected several indi- viduals who manifest it differently. The culture passes the same songs and prayers along from generation to generation, but the indi- vidual professor is noted not because he knows this or that song, but because of how well he executes it. Naturally, some individuals have specialized in certain types of learning or arts, say, herbalism or basketry. Also, in a broken-down culture there is real compensation to be derived from knowing about the old things. There is fear of being scoffed at by the bewildered younger generation, but most everyone respects the wisdom of old people. A representative study of Iroquois personality should take into account several cases of insanity that have developed among younger people, who, having found nothing respectable in the old culture, have also been frustrated in an attempt to adjust themselves to White culture as the progressive Indians see it. They are caught between two spurious cultures. However, my studies have been confined to the devout followers of

40 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

Handsome Lake, who, I believe, in seizing upon the accumulated goods and traditions of their own culture, have unfolded their own personal- ities within its framework. Despite conflicts with one another, they share a common love of the old way. They forget the uncertainties of a changing world, and derive real pleasure from being ‘‘Indians,”’ at least for the duration of the ceremonies. This statement is offered in an attempt to illustrate how individual variations in behavior can affect ethnology (cf. Wallace, A. F. C., 1952).

CASE I. WOOD-EATER, AN ELDERLY MAN OF THE BEAR CLAN

When I first heard of Wood-eater in June of 1933 it was through the recommendation of a white missionary who thought that the old man might possibly suit my interests as an anthropologist because he listed Wood-eater among those who caused most consternation in the work of Christian uplift. ‘The missionary could boast some progress with the pagan Indians, as he called them, since they now let him speak first at their funerals before Wood-eater rose to deliver his address and tell the people not to believe what the white preacher had said.

During the summer I came to know old dji’wa’, as the Indians fondly called him. In August he was making elm-bark bowls to exhibit at the New York State Fair. He showed me an elm-bark cradle of a type which preceded the wooden cradleboard. From a discussion of handicrafts and their uses in the old culture, our conver- sations drifted to herbal medicines, the content of the ceremonies, and ritualistic forms of address. Unlike others of the Seneca who were unsure of themselves in such matters, Wood-eater had full confi- dence in his knowledge, and he was always willing to impart accurately just what the old people told him.

He invited me to stay with him during the Midwinter Festival of 1934, and I returned to live in his household the next summer. With the old man as informant, his son clarifying what the old man had said while biting his pipestem, and his son’s wife interpreting, we worked at ethnology at the dinner table, around the stove while wiping dishes, on summer evenings propped up in chairs facing the road. Sometimes to my regret but to his own interest, the old man would tire of my questions and retire to hoe his garden, or he would vanish into the bush to return with some medicinal plant for the herbarium.

Visitors came to see him frequently, or to see me. Sometimes the Coldspring Singers Society came to dance, or just to sing; and when these activities flagged we “put up” the False-faces or held a feast for some other medicine society.

I attended the public affairs at the Longhouse with the family. There we listened to the old man, there formally designated Twi’yen- dagg’, Wood-eater, the principal speaker for the officers. As my abil-

FEnton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 41

ity to take Seneca texts phonetically improved, he would dictate ‘‘for the book’ what he told the people. Thus he gave me the long address which he customarily delivered at funerals, and which he used a few days later over Chesley Snow (Fenton, 1946). It was on this occa- sion that I heard him contradict the missionary.

As we walked home from the cemetery, he said:

Chesley was there among his relatives. He knew what I say this morning. I told them it was no good for the missionary to talk because [English] is hard language to understand. Some do not know what hesaid. I told them today that somebody should chose one preacher. It no use to have two preachers. Poor Chesley will not know where to go. He will be all mixed up. There are two roads. The missionary directs one, I another. He can’t go on both. Chesley stays on the middle and he does not know where he goes . . . I did the best I could.

He went on to tell me how he would like to have his own funeral.

They used to get a horse to take the body to the Longhouse . . . if a man had gone there during his lifetime. I want to be buried in a plain board coffin. Just the body uses it. The soul has gone out of it. Hesees the body lay down. He don’t know what is the trouble.

The Indian poormaster, appointed by the people, has no money to pay, but men at Coldspring can make a board coffin.

This is how it should be with us Indians.

Dji’wa’ got his wish. They did not bury him in a cloth-covered coffin such as he abhorred. When his body was brought home from the Salamanca City Hospital where he died in 1946, his neighbors dressed him in Indian costume and buried him in a pine box which they made for him.

Wood-eater was about 70 years old when I first knew him. His mother was an Onondaga of the Heron Clan, one of a little band of Onondaga descendants of that lineage who had settled among the Allegany Seneca. His mother’s mother had come from Onondaga many years ago. Seneca was his native tongue, and he had little English. A matron of the Wolf clan remarked:

His mother was really of the Heron Clan but he was adopted by Nancy Billy, mother of Arrow and Ten-mornings, matron of the Seneca Bear Clan. She changed his clan and name to the Bear roster. Adoption by a woman of another clan changes his clan but not his nation.

His name, however, belongs to the Bear Clan, in which he func- tioned. But his nickname (dji’wa’) is not clan property, and was shared by a member of another clan at Tonawanda.

He remains an Onondaga on the annuity rolls. The councillors have to accept him before he can be put on the Seneca annuity roll, thus adopting him into the Seneca Nation.

Formerly they used to adopt aliens of other nations. The councillors have

put a stop to the practice because abuses arose. Hemlocks-lying-down’s mother was caught collecting annuities in both Canada and in New York.

42 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Bu. 156

After his mother got another man, Dji’wa’ grew up at his grand- mother’s house where he came under the tutelage of his foster mother’s brother, Oscar Crow, from whom he learned the message of the Seneca Prophet, Handsome Lake, and how to speak in the Longhouse. Much participation as well as hard listening to the older speakers at the ceremonies etched in his mind the content of the entire Coldspring Seneca ceremonial cycle. He used to practice the learning of the Longhouse while walking in the woods and when felling timber. Old men must have liked this youth because they told him many things to remember, including the tobacco-burning prayers for Eagle Dance.

At times he had been a seasonal farmhand for my family, a railroad worker, a pretty fair carpenter. He had felled timber in the big woods, and during the last lumber boom along the Allegheny River he had ridden the rafts downriver to Pittsburgh. He had owned teams and cattle, and he had built the house where he lived.

He married twice, had several daughters and sons. Only his young- est son and a daughter’s son lived with him. His wife had been a Longhouse official of the Snipe Clan. Other daughters by another husband lived nearby but were not friendly to the household. He feared other neighbors too.

The man was no physical coward. Broken knuckles in his later years attested to many summers of playing baseball without a glove. The Coldspring people, like all Seneca, are ardent fans. I have seen the old man stop a hard liner with one bare hand. He loved lacrosse and he had played it well on a team with Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch and others when they were youths. He never mentioned his prowess as a runner, but it is said at Quaker Bridge that he and Deerfoot, a noted Seneca runner, had gone across the ocean as youths to defeat the best runners on the Continent. With failing health, he gave up his games, and he sold his carpenter’s tools to buy groceries for his last days.

As a ritual speaker and preacher of the Handsome Lake Revelation, Wood-eater heeded many calls on his services both at home and abroad on such occasions as the Green Corn and Midwinter Festivals and at the annual revivals of the Longhouse People which they call ‘Six Nations Meetings.” At home, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch and old Twenty-canoes accepted his version of the Good Message (Deardorff, 1951). Draped-over-a-log and Arrow, his adopted half-brother, asked him to conduct the stated festivals at the longhouse. It was usually he who appeared to “put tobacco in the fire’ at meetings of Eagle Dance. Wood-eater was the one, moreover, whom the officials of other longhouses—Newtown, Cattaraugus, Tonawanda, Onondaga, and the three longhouses at Grand River, Canada—summoned in the fall with notched message sticks and a short string of white wampum to preach at their meetings. ‘We like to hear that old man from

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 43

Allegany speak Seneca,’ I was told at Ohsweken in 1945. What he said was most like the words spoken at Burnthouse (Cornplanter, Pa.), a century and a half ago.

The old man had his qualms about appearing before a crowd, partic- ularly in Coldspring. Actually, members of the other faction—Snorer, Earth-hiller, his son’s half-sisters—annoyed him. He feared them. I have observed him taking a potion to ward away witchcraft, which he thought his rivals were attempting, before going up to the longhouse to speak. When he was called to Tonawanda for the Six Nations Meeting of 1933, Snorer got his chance to conduct the Green Corn Festival. Earth-hiJer and her son Sunshine immediately came into prominence; the mother was very active in the longhouse and the son outside parking cars. Both knew that Snorer was an outlander, and that his version of the ceremonies countered local tradition. To all this Wood-eater feigned amusement which was not convincing.

Wood-eater was a splendid informant. His pride and reserve melted before the wishes of a grandson. He told stories on winter nights. He had confidence in his knowledge, and his honesty asserted itself when in doubt. ‘I only know what the old folks tell me,” he would say, and not claim knowledge of what happened long ago.

It perplexed him that Hemlocks-lying-down should give way to tears while singing Handsome Lake’s song to the Wind and Thunder at the Midwinter Festival of 1934. He himself seemed emotionally sta- ble, unhurried, and confident that he fulfilled the Prophet’s canons of good behavior. For this he was respected.

Because his son’s wife is the daughter of Resting-sky’s wife, It-dips- water, his presence at the Eagle Dance for Resting-sky was expected.

CASE 2. CORN-HUSKER, A MIDDLE-AGED COMMONER OF THE HAWK CLAN

Corn-husker (newiya’’gq’)—or Parts-the-riffles—is brother of Rest- ing-sky’s wife, and they both are of the Hawk Clan like their mother who bore him 57 years ago at Coldspring. She was a reputed basket maker, and his father was a Faith-keeper in the Wolf Clan. The latter, a sharpshooter in Grant’s army during the Civil War, knew many White families in the Conewango Valley, between Allegany and Cattaraugus Reservations. Amos was jovial and fat, but his son is muscular and slight, though good-natured.

The father’s greatness is much impressed upon the son, who provi- sionally carried on his father’s duties at the longhouse for a time in lieu of a successor in the Wolf Clan. Finally, constant duty as a section hand on the Erie Railroad during 30 years prevented his attending the “doings” at the longhouse. So he gave up his office. [literacy and drink, the latter perhaps an expression of conflict, prevented his get-

982306—53——4

44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY L BULL. 156

ting a foremanship on the railroad. He could set a good curve, even after being drunk, but he could not write reports.

He belongs to the Coldspring Singers, an organization for mutual aid composed of younger men and certain old women whom they befriend, and he regularly attends their meetings and excels in singing the Pigeon and Sharpening-a-Stick Dances. He is well liked by his fellows who always inquire his whereabouts when he fails to appear of an evening. His clownishness insures a laugh from the Feather dancers, even during religious festivals.

If deficient in ritualistic pedantry, Corn-husker compensates by wit and a genius for material culture. He is a good gambler and famed maker of ‘‘snow-snakes.” He ‘‘fixes’”? water drums for his fellow singers by converting discarded paint kegs into resonators over which he stretches a soaked hide. He makes turtle rattles and carves false- faces (masks), in all of which he has a reputation for brilliant and feverish execution, usually induced by procrastination. His wife told me that once he took plenty of time and carved a beautiful drum- stick adorned with a human head on the handle. He is generous and helps her at night in the gardens.

His wife attended Carlisle, and after they began to live together he told his sisters that when she first returned she could not cook. When meals are late, he frequently remarks that he has just seen skeletons of men starved by their wives passing westward along the road to the hereafter. He admits his wife keeps a good garden and that she picks berries enough for the winter. They have lived together over 30 years. Like her, all the children are shy, and his relatives often remark about this. One was recently killed accidentally, but Corn- husker, wishing to avoid trouble, insisted no foul play was involved. He is quite susceptible to public opinion.

Corn-husker has an inordinate fear of ghosts, according to his rel- atives, and a penchant for fabricating and enlarging upon his ad- ventures—particularly his relationship with Whites. My long residence on his premises was welcome substantiation of a long- boasted friendship with my grandfather. I must confess the advan- tages of this situation were manifold. His hospitality includes harbor- ing a great number of pets: young hawks, skunks, and a crow which he claims speaks Seneca.

When Corn-husker was younger he had aspirations of becoming a great athlete; he especially aspired to pugilistic prowess. Wearing shorts, he ran about a triangle of roads in Coldspring every evening hoping to improve his wind. Some confreres, wishing to scare him, wrapped themselves in sheeting and stood on a fallen pine tree near the council house as he passed. Seeing them and thinking them

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ghosts (dji‘sg¢.), he threw stones at them; and one fell and sprained a shoulder.

Corn-husker is usually appointed ‘“‘whooper’’ at medicine society meetings. He is normally invited everywhere, but his wife seldom accompanies him, being both shy and somewhat incredulous of the medicine societies, as well as uninformed. She told me that once her children were sent away from a neighbor’s, where they were having a False-face anniversary rite, because their mother is not a real pagan.

Possibly this has something to do with his frequent visits at his sisters’ homes. They often hold medicine rites for him. He was expected to come to Resting-sky’s meeting. He finds in the Eagle Dance a legitimate outlet for his stories and good-natured wit.

CASE 8. STICK-LODGED-IN-A-CROTCH, GUARDIAN OF THE GOOD MESSAGE IN THE DEER CLAN

Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch (hawi’theg’k) is now an old man, and his people before him lived at Coldspring. He is of the Deer Clan and custodian of Handsome Lake’s good message, the senior religious office for his moiety, which includes the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk Clans. That office necessitates his spending many weeks traveling while visiting other longhouses with ‘‘Twenty,” the corresponding officer of the Bear Clan in the other moiety, and Wood-eater, the preacher. Besides, he is the Big Crow of the “Little Water Company,” which holds its periodic meetings at his home. The members leave their ritual paraphernalia there and he is custodian of the tribal medicine. Corn-husker left his bundle there, and he says that when he went after it, it had disappeared because Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch sold it at one of the Canadian longhouses.

Still a hard-working and thrifty farmer, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch has by far the most substantial buildings and means of the people who follow the ‘‘old way.” Hestill keeps a horse and afew cows. Besides he has raised a large family. His wife is now dead, but some of a daughter’s family live at home.

His proclivity for falling asleep during rituals and longhouse meet- ings is noted. He suffers some shyness in talking and is not readily understood, partly because he mumbles sleepily and because he has a number of nervous habits. He is apt to rub the back of his left hand, or his forehead, or scratch his head above his right ear. When he rises to talk he characteristically removes his felt hat by grasping it from the rear and bringing it forward, instead of doffing it from front to back. It is said that once he tore off a collar while talking, and another time the rim of his hat; and again while reciting his mission, he twisted a button from his overcoat, and the button flew across the room.

46 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

He is reputed never to have learned the origin legends for the rit- uals, because he has always gone to sleep while others were talking. As I suspected, this is not entirely true. He has been my informant, and his long life in ritual has made him conversant with all the forms, but I did not find him a ready teacher. No Eagle Dance is quite com- plete without him (and a great butt of jokes and conversation was lost when he departed).

At the longhouse social dances, young men who are scheduling the events usually hand him a horn rattle to lead the Linking-arms or Hand-in-hand Dance, which he is fond of singing. If his partner, “Twenty,” the chief of the opposite moiety, is present, floormen organ- ize the Trotting Dance and ask them to lead it. They also join as partners in the Fish Dance. The partners are famous in other long- houses where they visit. At Tonawanda, they call it “Great Quiver Dance,” when these two old men lead. In passing, it might be said that such friendships frequently emerge from standing in particular ceremonial relationships to another person in the other moiety as rit- ual singing partners, dance leaders, and chiefs. However, dancing partners are usually friends, and may be of the same phratry. Each longhouse officer has a correspondent on the other side, and the two are supposed to work together.

Such situations of paired roles may lead to rivalry. For example, a funeral requires that the preacher be from the opposite moiety to the deceased. In Coldspring, where there are only two speakers who now perform this office, the rival factions sometimes have to call upon an adversary, and the family which is affiliated with the other faction, so as to draw the unwanted one, may be at a loss. The two might be cronies, but they are rivals.

To return, Stick-lodged-in-a-crotch’s role in the culture of the local group is rather that of a participant than a shaper. He exerts a nega- tive rather than a positive force, which might be characterized as an anchor to windward for the “longhousers.”’

CASE 4. SNORER, A FAITH-KEEPER OF THE HAWK CLAN, A CONSCI- ENTIOUS OBJECTOR

Snorer (shogé’gwa's), of the Hawk Clan, lives up on “High Bank” overlooking Wolf Run and the Allegheny River to the east. His youngest son, of the Bear Clan, who lives with him, will inherit part of his father’s knowledge, having been home during the years of Snorer’s greatest erudition. The mother and many of Snorer’s chil- dren preceded him along the westward road to the hereafter, leaving him somewhat lonely. A son lives at Coldspring, and still another works on the Erie Railroad near Jamestown.

Born and nurtured at Plank Road, Cattaraugus Reservation,

TROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 47

Snorer learned English and Asher Wright’s missionary orthography for Seneca. He sold baskets in Buffalo and sought fraternity in water- front saloons. He is reputed to have drunk and fought at Newtown Longhouse, instead of listening to the older men. Nevertheless, he soon distinguished himself as a craftsman and as a ritual singer. He still has a stentorian baritone voice and a phenomenally inconsistent memory which contradicts versions of songs he has previously taught his pupils.

He-strikes-the-rushes says that his father, a noted ritual custodian, went to Snorer once for the medicine songs. He soon gave up trying to learn Snorer’s version and went to someone else, because his tutor sang them differently at each sitting.

Snorer moved to Allegany, his wife’s community, and his younger children were born there. Although now a long-time resident and even a Faith-keeper in the longhouse, he is still regarded as an inter- loper. To fortify his position he has established himself as an author- ity on ancient lore and learned everything possible. His inordinate pride and anxiety lest he be outstripped by Wood-eater has prompted him to pretend knowledge of Handsome Lake’s Revelation, saying his father before him was a preacher and taught him; but his recitation was not approved by the committee appointed to hear him.

Nevertheless, he is an impressive orator, and commands the respect of his listeners which at other times he demands but cannot control. He modulates his voice, speaking some parts softly. He says, ‘‘You notice how they are all quiet when I talk in the longhouse. There is no whispering as there is when Wood-eater speaks.”

In 1933 when Wood-eater was called to the Six Nations Meeting at Tonawanda, the two male longhouse officers asked Snorer to conduct the Green Corn Festival. On the third day, before addressing the Creator between songs of the Thanksgiving Dance, a role usually per- formed by Wood-eater, Snorer explained it as his first attempt, con- fessing a sketchy knowledge of the forms; but he did not call on another Faith-keeper who was present and knew the invocatory chants.

Snorer is an excellent informant. Having been derided, he has pumped his rivals, endeavoring to learn all they know and at the same time render himself indispensable. His thirst for knowledge in part accounts for his inconsistencies. His store is vast and necessarily his selections differ periodically. He has acquired a world of informa- tion, which, of necessity he has thought through. He becomes the preacher when Wood-eater is ill or unable to preach. This happened when Wood-eater’s wife died a year ago.

Snorer hoped that he and his young son might attend the Six Nations Meetings, that they might learn of extra local affairs. He would like to be recognized among all the Iroquois peoples. ‘Once he went to

48 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

Canada, saying he had been called, but no one had heard of him there.”

When delegates are summoned to Six Nations Religious Councils, the messenger summons only the chiefs by name. Then all the Faith- keepers are summoned in a body, before the common people. It irks both Snorer and Hemlocks-lying-down considerably to be bracketed, for they feel their names should be mentioned individually.” It is only unfortunate that they have no living mothers or sisters of naming rank who could nominate them for high office. Further, Hemlocks- lying-down is only Seneca by sufferance, being an outlander by birth.

It must not be construed that Snorer is without power or friends. His singing ability promoted him to head singer for the “Little Water Company,” although he no longer holds the medicine. Chauncey Warrior of the Turtle Clan, a Cattaraugus Cayuga in the other moiety, is his ‘‘partner.”’ Earth-hiller, the old woman of the Wolf Clan, leads the faction which opposes Wood-eater, and she employs Snorer as her spokesman.

Snorer exhibits a blunt exterior and is easily offended; and he is given to sudden and sustained anger when crossed, but to ‘‘Rabe- lasian” humor if encouraged. Recently, Snorer’s son brought home a Canadian Iroquois mistress, but another Coldspring youth enticed her away. Snorer remarked, “I guess my son just rented it. He and his friend are too weak to dance Eagle Dance any more.”

Like many of his tribesmen, Snorer has been a ‘‘show’’ Indian, and once visited Glen Island beyond New York City. He is proud of his knowledge of White culture. When away from home, he becomes Chief ‘White Eagle,” a fictitious person, and a vendor of fabricated ethnography. Loyalty to his own culture does not permit his singing anything but ‘‘show songs” away from home.

Even as an old man, he bragged that White women wished to marry him, but old Seneca women remark that he is even too lame to get firewood. They call him “curly-headed-John,’”’ a somewhat sinistral compliment, since Indian hair is traditionally straight. However, he claims descent from Mary Jemison, the ‘‘White woman of the Genesee,” who is a coveted ancestor of many mixed-bloods.

One may readily understand that bitterness as well as increasing lameness kept him from the longhouse in 1934 while Wood-eater con- ducted the New Year’s Dance. Referring to his excessive lameness and attributing it to the sorcery of his rival, he said:

“T am tired of the trouble I am having. I am going to turn it around. Clairvoyants say that they are jealous because I was a great dancer of social dances. I mean the ones that are on this earth for our enjoyment, not the four sacred rituals, which alone are in heaven.”

12 Since this was written he was called to preach in Canada and at Cattaraugus, his old home. His ambitions were not unavailing.

Fanton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 49

Nevertheless, the proximity of Resting-sky’s home to “High Bank’? and the lure of hog’s head and a pail of corn soup, permitted his hob- bling down to the Eagle Society meeting and participating. Life at Coldspring is different without him.

CASE 5. HEMLOCKS-LYING-DOWN, A SO-CALLED “CAYUGA” OF THE TURTLE CLAN

Hemlocks-lying-down was a grown man when he came to Coldspring about 1889 from Cattaraugus Reservation. Thougha functioning mem- ber of the Turtle Clan at Coldspring, local Seneca call him a “Cayuga,” which, like ‘‘Delaware,”’ is a smear word for one of un- certain social position, to underscore the fact that he is an outlander. The man who marries into the Seneca Nation, or who removes from Cattaraugus to Allegany or to Tonawanda, is never allowed to forget that he does not really belong to the community where he may spend his adult life.

Born at Cattaraugus at a place called Plank Road before 1870, his father was a recognized Seneca of the Beaver Clan from Buffalo Creek, named Split-house. His mother was really a Seneca of the Turtle Clan with the name of ‘‘Big leaf,” but she went off to Grand River, Canada, to make a second marriage with a Cayuga with whom she resided so long that they added her name to the Cayuga tribal roll. Therefore, old Seneca women around Coldspring came to wonder whether his mother was not really a Cayuga, or of some other, perhaps Algonquian, tribe, saying, ‘“They came from way beyond Canada,” meaning the Grand River Reserve.

His first recollections are of life along Clear Creek in a predomi- nantly Turtle Clan house. Later he lived on the ball ground or com- mon at Newtown Longhouse where the life of a growing boy is full of sport and where the ceremonies take place. The boys of Newtown gave up their ball game only when an official called from the door for them to come inside as the ceremonies were to start. They listened, and danced at the end of the line. Unlike his grandsons, who are famed dancers, he learned late, at 18, under tutelage of his father. Boys were helped at home before joining public ceremonies.

Likewise he was 21 before he sang Great Feather Dance in public. He and a singing partner listened to his father and practiced, and their great day came when the regular singer got drunk on hard cider en route to the Green Corn Dance. ‘‘Word came that the regular singer was lying under a tree. The officials put us in. I was nerv- ous the first time we sat down on the bench in the longhouse. After that we used to sing at every ceremony.”

Hemlocks-lying-down was thus an accomplished singer at the long- house before he ever came to Allegany. As he learned, the old men

50 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ BULL. 156

coached him. But he did not sing for the Medicine Society until after he came to Coldspring. An old lady, mother of Earth-hiller, taught him the legend and songs.

He settled first at Wolf Run close to his work, which was first in a lumber mill, then on the section gang of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a job he was to hold 35 years. He worked 9 years for the Erie. From the time he first went out to work in the basket factory and the cannery near Cattaraugus until his retirement from work on the section, he has been a steady worker. He was still a man of tremendous physical strength in his sixties when I first knew him. He was then living at Coldspring, just south of where the creek enters Allegheny River, in a cluster of three houses occupied by his offspring. His wife, with whom he stayed for 40 years, had died but a few years pre- viously.

Actually, the latter was his third marriage, not counting an affair when he first came to Allegany with a young girl, the sister of Corn- husker and later wife of Resting-sky. At 16 he had married a Ca- nadian Iroquois girl, whose picture he still carried in 1948. They had met at a dance at Sour Springs; he brought her home, but she was taken sick and died within 18 months of a rheumatic heart. A son died in the Canadian army in 1919. A second marriage was with a Newtown girl, but some trouble developed, and he came to Allegany.

Here developed the trysts at the river crossing with It-dips-water, whom he never considered a wife, but this attitude in itself reflects distance between him and her kindred, which is of significance for this study. He does not go to Resting-sky’s, so his not appearing at that Eagle Dance is not perplexing.

When I first knew him he claimed not to know many people because he always remained at home making baskets.

“‘T make the best baskets in Coldspring and White people come from all over to get them. No one around here knows as much about the medicines. Life at Cattaraugus is nearer the old way.”’

His household in Coldspring includes his son’s son, a Beaver, and the latter’s current wife. His only son, a Wolf, lives across the road with a second grandson. When questioned about this offspring, he said,

“T had only Great-night; I guess I was no good for that sort of bus- iness.”” Actually he and his son are not close; his two grandsons, whom he raised, are his closest kin.

His deceased wife’s brother, djidégwas, also lived across the road in the only log house extant in Coldspring. This little cluster of households forms the basis of a family clique in Coldspring society.

Corn-husker’s remarks reflect the opinion of a faction toward a smaller feud group encysted in the community: “I told my wife that if you go down to his place all the time, you get all twisted up. I am

Funton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 51

not going to tell you anything more. I always tell the truth when you write it down.”

I had noticed that Corn-husker was a bit offish at Great-night’s house one evening, when the Coldspring Singers Society met there. He remained outside and went home early. Later he mentioned that there had been trouble between the families. Corn-husker does not like to believe that Great-night’s group know anything about his son’s death, although others have told him.

That man is a trouble-maker. He is mad at the longhouse people because he insists ritual songs and the Handsome Lake religion should be different from the way they are conducted here. They [the longhouse officers] do not have him sing Feather Dance any longer.

Those two families down there are by themselves. There will be trouble if you go there. Draped-over-log and Arrow, the two longhouse headmen, and Stick- lodged-in-a-crotch and the Snows will not like it. They are like children; they run about [as if] they did not know where they were at.

The men of Cattaraugus, like Hemlocks-lying-down and Chauncey Warrior, his clansman, are truly foreigners within the community. One is a fine singer and a capable orator, but he holds no office; a feigned lack of interest in not being a Faith-keeper is but a mask for a sense of social inferiority. Undoubtedly Hemlocks-lying-down excels many of those in office. His singing ability is a hold on fame. He renders the sacred songs particularly well and when not ‘‘mad”’ at the longhouse officers, they usually request him to sing. The officials were in his good graces at the 1934 ‘‘New Year’s,” but on two impor- tant occasions he failed to appear. Someone said he liked to be coaxed. He told me, ‘“‘I am the only singer who knows all of the Big-Women’s Dance. Once Fannie Stevens [an Onondaga of the Heron Clan] had to come after me so they could have it.”” Then he chuckled.

He-strikes-the-rushes relates how he and Hemlocks-lying-down were invited to sing Feather Dance together at a Six Nations meeting at Coldspring. The former had a new turtle rattle which the latter borrowed and in singing beat it so hard on the bench to keep time that the handle broke. ‘Afterward, Old Yéndi told me that he was jealous of my singing ability, and he beat that rattle hard enough to break it.”

Although Snorer and Chauncey Warrior find solace in each other’s company, Hemlocks-lying-down maintains only a ‘“‘kidding’’ relation- ship with the former. He had a serious falling out with Snorer one winter, because the latter borrowed six strings of corn and two bushels of potatoes, when facing starvation, and did not later repay them. Later, when Snorer had a horse and buggy, he took Hemlocks-lying- down to Randolph and wanted money and more corn to boot for his services. Hemlocks-lying-down alleges he has to feed half the neigh- borhood every winter.

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Pride in the productivity of his garden is warranted. He regretted that his deceased wife’s brother, djiddgwas, should raise better corn in 1933, and that Draped-over-log should raise the best cabbages, but he contends that his seed is ancient and usually grows. His gardening ability is only surpassed by his craftsmanship.

His and Snorer’s relative merits as woodworkers approximate their rivalry as singers and folklorists. He claims that whenever he has developed a new lacrosse stick or baseball bat, Snorer has endeavored to copy it. But every time Hemlocks-lying-down has scooped the market and left his rival with a frozen stock. In the meanwhile he develops a new idea.

Of the two, one is impressed that Hemlocks-lying-down fashions for the love of it. His baskets and musical instruments have a dignity which results from a mastery of technique and patient leisurely han- dling. In contradistinction, one notes the bold regular facets of a ponderously intuitive style of carving which is his rival’s, and which one feels may be susceptible to greater refinement. Hemlocks-lying- down reluctantly admits that the Snorer is the only man at Coldspring who knows how to make a flageolet.

Hemlocks-lying-down frequently goes into the woods to gather medicines. His knowledge of ethnobotany, though characteristic of elderly Seneca, is considered extraordinary even among his own people. I have rarely suggested a plant for which he did not know many uses. His preoccupation with botany and carving has influenced many to suspect him of sorcery.

Hemlocks-lying-down kept an angora cat named “Mickey” and a mangy nondescript pup called ‘‘ Zero,” because, as he said, he “amounts to nothing.”” He was nearly as sentimental about a small pig.

He is inclined to whimsey. During the New Year Dance of 1934 he was appointed conductor by several medicine society ritual sponsors. While requesting a man who was seated on the second row of longhouse benches to sing, he would lean over and pinch a youth’s leg—the while he was whispering earnestly to the singer—and then stand back, look surprised at the boy and laugh. This behavior, coupled with amused chuckling, especially at his own bon mots, which usually have humorous sexual reference, is perhaps an expression of his own sexual preoccupation, a business at which he admits he was unproductive. Further, it expresses a peculiarly Seneca love for the ‘‘little ones,” which emerges in one form or another among all the older people.

All of our friends, cited in these case studies, are among the truly devout followers of the “‘old way,” but each of them manifests his culture differently. As a savant, Snorer would have the community support him. Hemlocks-lying-down, essentially anarchical, is more interested in himself and his art than in what others think of him,

FEnron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 53

except that his singing remains indispensable to the longhouse people. Rather than thrust himself forward he patiently waits to be coaxed, and sometimes goes home in a peeve when slighted. But when active he is sincerely emotional and deeply moved by his own singing and its symbolism within the ritual. More than once I have seen the tears course down his cheeks as he sang Feather Dance or the Dawn Song which his father sang before him. More than any other person I know, he has identified himself completely with his cultural environment.

He conducted the first meeting of the Eagle Society but was absent at Resting-sky’s anniversary, both for reasons explained above and because he was singing at Earth-hiller’s “doings” in Coldspring. He happened to be in her good favor that winter.

CASE 6. EARTH-HILLER, MATRON OF THE WOLF CLAN

A woman named Earth-hiller (gain’dahgwa’) (pl. 14) is the old woman Faith-keeper of the Wolf Clan. She lives at Coldspring near the longhouse with Sunshine, her son, and a granddaughter, now grown up. She harbored (djido't) the reservation vagrant, whom everyone else feared. Although now lean and dependent on a crutch, she was once a fine-looking woman and still presents an imposing figure in the councils of the longhouse officers. .

Like her son, who habitually affects a cane and doesn’t need it,she too is able to dispense with her crutch, and not to be outdone by other spry old women, cavorts with great birdlike jumps in the women’s dances, her crutch tucked beneath her left arm pit and the free end waving dangerously aft. She seems to enjoy the amusement she elicits and frequently whoops shrilly to incite it.

Sometimes her enthusiasm has led to subsequent ridicule. During the seventh day of the Midwinter Festival she was moved to express her thanks to the Great Spirit en marche between songs of the Tra- ditional-woman’s Dance. Suddenly she piped in all sincerity, ‘I am thankful I am living at this season.” Everyone laughed, although her behavior was well within the proprieties of the occasion.

She, as well as any woman, illustrates the classic power of Iroquois woman. She objects to Wood-eater, not liking him, and employs Snorer as her spokesman. She would exalt her son to a status office, insisting his name is of chiefly rank. At times impatient, she shrieks her objections from her station near the women’s door. She loaned her land to the baseball team for a diamond, but offered it to a second club a succeeding year, because the first was presumptive enough to assume a second season’s use without asking for it. She entertains whom she wishes.

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COMMENT

Usually anyone is welcome at Medicine Society meetings, espe- cially if he pays the price of admittance, a pinch of Indian tobacco for the offering and for the members to smoke. It rests with the con- ductor whom the host has appointed to invite the members. Never- theless, Earth-hiller makes out a list, hands it to the conductor, and designates who shall not be invited.

Hence, it is interesting that since she held an anniversary of the Eagle Dance on the same night as Resting-sky, which was legitimate, since midwinter is the appropriate season for feasts, her choice of guests included Hemlocks-lying-down as conductor, and limited Resting-sky’s conductor’s selection of dancers to two boys from the Bear Clan, for she had previously secured the two other boys who represented both moieties and knew how to dance. I suppose that no such conflict would arise in an aboriginal community in which normally most of the youths would know the Eagle Dance. The con- flict naturally meant that certain people were invited to both meetings and had to exercise a preference which, in itself, is significant. The fact that some people came greater distances to Resting-sky’s party indicates that proximity did not entirely rule their choice. It was, however, expected that Snorer and his son would go to Earth-hiller’s party, but Resting-sky’s was nearer and, moreover, Hemlocks-lying- down had already been chosen to conduct Earth-hiller’s party.

THE SENECA EAGLE DANCE AT TONAWANDA THE CEREMONY

The Tonawanda Eagle Dance exhibits minor local differences in the ritual which, however, Tonawanda residents feel set them apart from the other Seneca at Coldspring and Newtown. My observations and inquiries are centered about one meeting, an anniversary of the cure of Helper, an old Sachem of the Bear Clan (pl. 15), and the renewal of his ceremonial friendship with his young friend, He-is-coming, of the Snipe clan in the other moiety (p.126). This meeting called forth the best wits in the community, and they were afterward my informants. Therefore, rather than set forth a detailed description of my own observations, I shall note obvious ritual differences and then relate two detailed accounts of the ritual by two exceptional informants, both sachem chiefs of the Snipe clan—Falling-day, a famed singer, and Hair-burned-off, a ritual speaker. Space does not permit a description of all the personalities involved in this situation. Nevertheless, cer- tain personality references are made by my informants.

The Tonawanda version of the Eagle Dance is unique in the follow- ing respects: There seems to be an emphasis on ceremonial friendship.

Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 55

The meeting requires the usual functionaries: messenger, conductors, first singer, and assistants; but the man who asks the blessing and returns thanks for all the stations of the pantheon is distinct from the tobacco-burning priest. Hair-burned-off performed the former office and Twenty-kettles (Hawk Clan) the latter. There is frequent mention of “your medicine society (swatcing’g¢’shg’),” and the prayers are more elaborate. Before the ceremony, the conductor passes tiny pieces of raw meat among the members.

In the ritual, there were no songs sung by the priest when he burned the tobacco, but there was a presentation of rattles and drums to the singers. Twenty-kettles said that he was renting the rattles for the occasion. One speaker, Awl-breaker (Wolf Clan), in the other moiety, presented all the horn rattles instead of gourd rattles to the dancers. The dancers were three in number, and they did not employ fans; Edward Black (Hawk Clan) admits that fans should be used but were forgotten. There was no whooper; one of the dancers performed this duty. The striking stick and striking pole were not employed, but aninformant says they should be employed and were used anciently ; instead, the speaker stamps to interrupt the singers.

The speeches illustrated for the first time in my experience the ridi- cule of someone in the other clan. He-strikes-the-rushes of the Snipe Clan (pl. 16, 1) made fun of Awl-breaker in the other moiety, his father’s clansman, saying the Wolves are awful liars, and the latter replied in kind. Great-root (Turtle Clan) says that Hair-burned-off (Speaker) said that the Creator had left everything to be used for medicine, that even the paper which wrapped the crackers might be used to allay blisters on the feet. This amused people.

Peculiar to Tonawanda is the donation of packages of chewing tobacco to the dancers. Crackers are also used as elsewhere. How- ever, speakers do not make gifts to the singers and the persons ridi- culed. Nevertheless, at the end of the ritual, when all of the store of gifts had been allotted to the dancers and the conductor had taken them outside, He-strikes-the-rushes and one other chap made speeches of praise and good wishes to the ritual celebrant, Helper, presenting him with a few pennies to buy medicine.

The feast consists of a boiled chicken, instead of pig’s head, which is passed counterclockwise. Hominy soup was ladled out by the head- man first to the two ritual celebrants, Helper and He-is-coming; then the sponsor, Helper’s wife, filled the conductor’s pail, after which he called for the members and guests to shove their pails toward the wash boiler of soup from which he filled them equally in a counterclockwise direction. Then he told them to retrieve them.

Great-root says that one does not necessarily have to belong to the

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society to speak. He is sure that he is not a member, although he acted as first singer.

One time they had it in the longhouse during the Midwinter Festival and they came to me and asked me to sing. I told them I did not know the songs. Well, then the conductor said, ‘‘You help.” So I took a rattle and helped the head singer and although I did not know the rhythm at first, I soon learned it and got used to the songs. Later, they asked me to be head singer. I don’t know whose songs I sing, because I learned them of several people whom I assisted at different times. Thesongs have no words. The number seems indefinite.

Following this meeting, He-strikes-the-rushes explained why he took the liberty to ridicule Awl-breaker; it was because Awl-breaker is his father’s clansman. However, this joking relationship is unknown at Tonawanda, and two other informants misunderstood him.

The Turtle Clan are fibbers.

The Wolf Clan, they say, are know-it-alls. They used to say that at Newtown in the Eagle Dance. The Wolf Clan would brag. Then someone would reply, “T am not of the Wolf Clan. Therefore, I cannot boast. My clan has never been noted for anything.”

One jokes with one’s father’s clansman.—Awl-breaker is of my father’s clan, the Wolf. We always pick on each other. But we do not take it seriously. He talked first at Helper’s. When he gave out the rattles to the dancers, he said that they were his. So I replied that he would soon own them, that he boasted. I started it after he presented the rattles. I said he was full of lies. You can’t tell a Wolf anything.

The opening speaker should tell what there is to distribute. He also said that jokes are permitted. Some are supposed to speak in praise of the ritual sponsor. However, I think that my words are superfluous, inasmuch as this was an anni- versary; it is different when someone is sick, so it is better to joke and have a good time. They talk [encouragement] when it is really a serious case of illness. Other- wise, the sponsor’s health is taken care of in the tobacco invocation. Hair-burned- off, the orator, said that there would be no limit to the joking. The jokes were to be only lasting for the duration of the ritual. The jokes are permitted so long as the sponsor is not too sick. Noone must take offense. Awl-breaker got mad and went home.

The origin and early history of the Eagle Dance Medicine Society are unfamiliar to Falling-day, although he is 67, a sachem chief, singer for the ritual, and generally considered well posted on other matters. The idea that the ritual may have been formerly associated with peace or war is also unfamiliar to him; the ritual and its significance as a medicinal curing society have remained constant within his memory.

MEMBERSHIP

In answer to the query as to how memberships were created, Falling-day answered:

You get sick and your folks might think it might help you, and they put youin that society. They dance gané’ gwi’e’’.

FEnron] TROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 57

Of course, a fortuneteller, one who tells what you don’t know, might tell your people that you should join.

They do different ways but they have the same name. Some use tea, some cards, some employ medicinal herbs. They gather certain herbs and put them under their pillows when they sleep.

Dreams are a third mode of entrance. ‘‘They sometimes dream to help such, but I have never seen one.’”’ He refers to the practice of a person’s dreaming of a sick person in association with the ritual of some medicine society. Then the society holds the ritual and cures the sick person.

The frequency with which Falling-day answered my queries (and I believe honestly), “I don’t know; I never heard; they never told me about that,’’ is in itself indicative of the importance of recognizing indi- vidual differences and their bearing on the problem of culture for under- standing Seneca ceremonies. Unlike so many lesser members of his group, he was well on in years before he joined the Eagle Society. Nevertheless, he was a singer for many years.

I was lame and some people thought that it would help me, so I tried it. This was not many, perhaps 15, years ago.

If I want to get up such a dance, I go to any member and ask him to give the invitations. The messenger (hadjdswas) is supposed to be a member, but some- times when a member is away, a nonmember acts as messenger. Anyone can do it.

Quite a number of years that I was singer, I was not a member of the society. They give you the invitation to go sing, if you know how. If you have a drum, the messenger tells you to bring it along; if you lack a drum they will get that of some- one else and the rattle boxes. I never had a drum; always someone else furnished the drum.

If I were going to have a meeting I would get anyone to do the cooking. Hominy is required for soup; and once in a while they hulled white corn soup but the soup must have meat in it because Shada’gé-a’’ eats meat. One whole chicken is required. It must be white, but that is hard to get, so we use any kind of chicken.

Falling-day says he thinks pig’s head was formerly used for the feast, as now at Allegany, but not often; “it has got to be chicken.”

The cooking proceeds any time during the day or afternoon—‘‘any- time before the dance goes on.”

Several things are required for the meeting [yene’gw4’’istha’]: crackers and chew- ing tobacco to give to the dancers; Indian tobacco for the prayer; yene’gwaistha’ ga’nya’—a stick to strike the floor before speaking; and my uncle and predecessor Chief Chauncey Abrams [Snipe], and Old Jim Scrogg, who lived across the road, told me that at Tonawanda they used to have a post that was striped red like a barber pole where they hit the stick when they started dancing. It was used in the house where they were dancing.

SETTING THE BUNDLE UP BEFORE A MEETING PLACE

Falling-day volunteered that, ‘“Years ago, but I have not seen that, when they were going to have such a dance, they would give the invita-

58 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

tions just the same, but they set up a pole nearby the house and hung up one rattle box, the drum, and one fan.” Falling-day thinks that they did not hang up the tobacco, nor has he heard that they crossed the two fans as at Newtown, but he has never seen the ritual parapher- nalia displayed on the forked striped pole. ‘‘Now this is an invitation 2 days before they are going to have the ritual.’”’ They do not burn tobacco when they erect the pole, ‘not until they are ready to dance.”

The messenger goes from house to house inviting the members to the meeting.

He selects, that’s his duty to select, singers and dancers. He gets two dancers, three if he can get three, twoanyway. Sometimesfour. Nodifference. Dancers do not have to be of opposite moieties. Not here at Tonawanda. The four- dancer pattern of Coldspring is absent at Tonawanda. [See below.] Notched invitation sticks are not used, and corn is not distributed to the members to present at the meeting as a sign of membership and receipt of invitation. The same invitations are given for a celebrant as for a sick person.

The messenger sets the time. He tells them that such and such a time they are to come tothe house. He might say early, just beforedark. Orniyéntcis-do-tha’— such a time when you light the lamp.

THANKSGIVING

Before they are seated at the meeting, then the announcer (hatha’ha’) begins the thanksgiving (gano’-nygk). When he starts speaking [it is not necessary for him to run the whole fixed gamut of the pantheon], he must think of (1) the people, (2) the four persons [who are] the messenger[s] of the Creator, and (8) the Creator. This is the beginning.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Then the speaker tells who got up such a dance; he tells what ails the person— that he is not feeling well and that he thought that the ceremony might help him. Another way, people tended the sick man. They try all the herbal medicines, but they don’t do any good, so they thought it might help this kind [that type of ceremony might help him]. If you have been attending the sick man and you think it may help such [that gane’gwia’e-’ may help him] and you expressed the thought that it might help him, then the speaker tells what you thought.

The speaker tells who is going to sing and who will help. [At Tonawanda, singers do not have to be of opposite moieties.] He mentions the names of the dancers and how many will dance and that he himself was invited to speak.

A speaker may have many ways to speak; then he may elaborate and talk for a long time, otherwise ‘“‘a man who can’t says but afew words.” Hair-burned-off is among the best. When he finishes, then they are seated.

The messenger becomes the ritual manager or the conductor at the meeting. When they all get there, the conductor tells the dancers to put on their costumes. He seats the singers and functionaries, leaving an adequate space for the dancers.

[At this point Falling-day forgot the outline, omitting to mention the general thanksgiving speech, announcements, and the invocation.]

FanTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 59

TOBACCO INVOCATION

Twenty-kettles usually does this, but anyone who knows how may make the tobacco-burning invocation. Nowadays few know how. Falling-day never burned tobacco at this ceremony.

Falling-day heard that when the priest starts to burn the tobacco he makes a war whoop and sings part of the first song, but he never saw thisdone. The fan, rattle, drum, and the gifts to distribute after the speeches lie on the floor near the stove (fire). The priest does not hold them in his hand.

The tobacco-burning invocation to the Dew Eagle by Twenty-kettles.— Twenty-kettles, an old man of the Hawk Clan, senior officer of Tona- wanda Longhouse, invariably makes the tobacco-burning invocation at meetings of the Eagle Society.

Someone told the conductor [hadja’swas] to gather the medicine society [hong’tcino’’ge¢’], and somebody speaks giving thanks when they come in to the meeting. He tells them who will sing when they dance. When they are ready the singers sit on the benches. There must be two singers and they must be of different moieties. Someone puts tobacco and then the song commences. This is gane’’gwi’e’.

Now you will partake of tobacco, you who are wheeling in flight at the elevation the clouds are scudding, you who are of the mists—the Dew Eagles.

Now the smoke is rising from the real tobacco and through it you cloud dwellers shall hear.

Rightly our ruler ordained as he intended [or said], ‘‘I will create mankind on the earth, that there shall travel to and fro human beings to whom, no matter where they are, aid shall come from time to time.”

And they tobacco shall partake, they whom he created, the wild animals; and they [humans] shall continue to derive benefit from a bond of friendship between themselves and the game animals.

So now it is fulfilled you [all] shall partake of the tobacco.

So now then, as it should be, her illness will cease.

Now then it is well that it has happened so, that she shall continue to travel about here on the earth.

Now then you, our ruler, you reside in the sky place; you should grant strength or power when it is fulfilled; the Dew Eagles have partaken of tobacco."

Now then the fan has partaken of the tobacco, that which is derived from your being of which it is symbolic [represents].

Now the ceremony is about to commence.

Now then your drum receives tobacco.!5

Now the very songs partake of the tobacco.

13 The invoker addresses the Great Spirit because he originally endowed the Dew Eagles with healing power. He has supreme power and should give strength to everything when it is fulfilled. The people have already done their duty to the Dew Eagles by giving them tobacco. One always returns thanks to the Great Spirit.

14 The feathers of the fan are plucked from the Eagle. The fan represents the eagle’s wing and is symbolic of his body [heya’da’de’—his being].

18 Now they are mentioning the items in the ritual and the feast, which is a chicken at Tonawanda, having dispensed with the principal functionary, the Dew Eagle; so they may now touch on the minor elements of the ritual such as the equipment and the feast.

982306—53——5

60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Bun. 156

Now this very feast has received tobacco which they are going to pick at when they complete the ceremony—they of the medicine society.

So now also this very striking pole has received tobacco, which they will strike and make speeches.

It is finished (da’‘ne’ho). DISTRIBUTION OF TINY PIECES OF MEAT

‘“‘ After the announcements and the invocation, when everything is ready, the conductor comes around counterclockwise with little pieces of cut-up pork meat. He distributes this to all the members. This meat must be raw. Shada’ge’-a’ don’t eat cooked meat.”

All ceremonial circuits and distributions which I have observed during years of witnessing Seneca ceremonies have been counterclock- wise. Falling-days says, “‘The conductor goes ‘to the left’ in a circle [shatgwadi-gwa ’e’ ot‘ wada'se’]”; clockwise is called a circle to the right- hand side (heyegsto:‘gwa ’e’ ot‘ wada'se’).

ASSIGNMENT OF ROLES AND PRESENTATION OF PARAPHERNALIA

Frequently now, the conductor has handed the drum to someone, other than the singers, and the rattles and fans to a different man. He does not appoint a special whooper; he merely asks someone to make the whoop.

Whoop.—No song is sung at Tonawanda until the drum has been presented to the head singer.

Striking for silence—Somebody has to hit his foot on the floor or strike the stick; they are supposed to have a stick. Then the man who has the drum says, “I was supposed to sing. The messenger invited me to sing, that’s why I have the drum. But now I see there is somebody else who is going to sing, so I will let him use the drum. You see that that fellow who thinks he is going to sing has no drum and his assistants have no rattle boxes so I will let them use or borrow these tonight.’”’ Sometimes he says, “I will give it to them.” Speaker gives drum and rattles to the first and second singers. Infrequently a second speaker presents the horn rattles to the second singer.

THE RITUAL

(1) Whoop and Song IJ.—Another man, to whom the conductor has entrusted the rattles (for fans have gone out of use recently at Tona- wanda), hits the stick and presents the rattle boxes to the dancers. “In the invitation I received, I understood that I was to dance, but now that I have arrived I see that someone else has been selected to dance, and I will let them use what I ordinarily employ when I dance.” This one speaker presents the rattles to all the dancers, who do not seem to be alined according to phratries. Speeches by members of

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 61

alternate moieties seemed foreign to Falling-day. Moiety ridicule of the other dancer or encouragement to surpass the dancer of the other moiety seemed equally strange. ‘‘Not here. Dancers do not have to be of opposite sides.”’

The four-dancer pattern, with dancers of opposite moieties as at Coldspring, is unfamiliar to Falling-day; it is absent at Tonawanda.

(2) Whoop and Song II.—The Speaker or announcer gives the crack- ers and tobacco to the crowd. He sets it conveniently on the floor at one side of the open space among the speakers for the convenience of anyone who wants to make presents to the dancers. He delivers the stuff that the host has made ready for the speakers.

Hair-burned-off, speaker at Helper’s, said that even the wax paper is medicine.

(3) Whoop and Song III.—

They sing and here the dancers commence to dance.

Somebody strikes the floor and speaks. Anyone now—you can say what you want tosay. Most of them urge the dancers to keep up their willingness to dance. It is well to begin this way; you can urge the dancers, but if you have anything special in your mind to say, you may go ahead as you did that time last year. You had a joke between yourself and another fellow present. It is alright to tell that.

After the third song anyone is priviledged to talk. Women may speak. Wil- liam Gordon’s wife [skadi] used to speak. Anybody: women, children, may speak.

In joking, they don’t mean what they say. It is a joke to make the sick one feel good and forget his ailments. It encourages him to think that he amounts to something when all these people have gathered to wish him good luck, health, and friendship, and deride each other.

Moiety separation does not occur at Tonawanda. ‘‘We do not separate according to sides here at Tonawanda.”

Any joking relationship is unfamiliar to Falling-day. “If you find a chance to joke with anyone, do it—we do that here.” I asked about He-strikes-the-rushes’ alleged joking relationship with Awl-breaker, his father’s clansman, because they stood in that relationship, and Falling-day replied, “Jesse makes fun of da’hg because they are well acquainted, not because da’hg is Jesse’s father’s clansman. People who know each other well don’t get mad. A few people here can’t stand a joke on them. They will make fun of you and enjoy it, but when you joke back, they can’t stand it. Dji’wa’isthat way. He is the only one I can recall, who is like that.”

(4) They continue dancing and speaking until all that has been prepared to give away is distributed—that is, it is given over to the conductor to divide equally among the dancers at the end of the ceremony. Then the Speaker [hatha’*ha’] has to announce that all that was prepared to give away is exhausted. Then he says, “If anyone wants to continue, then he must furnish his own presents”— perhaps pennies, or an apple which he may have in his pocket. Sometimes they

give these presents to the one who has got up the dance; they claim they make medicine that way [the idea being that the patient may buy medicine].

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The singer does not have to speak.

Money stood up in floor cracks to test agility of dancers.—As at Onondaga, pennies are frequently stood up in a crack in the floor to test the agility of dancers.

If you pick it up it is yours. The dancer bends over first, trying to pick it up in his mouth. A dancer may try several times and finally pick it up with his hand. I once saw a fellow who could not bend down on his knee, so they set it up elevated on a stick above the floor (6 inches). If a dancer succeeds in picking up in his mouth a coin which a Speaker stands on edge, next time they will lay it flat. There used to be dancers around here who could pick up a flat penny—the trick is to lay your ear flat on the floor. I could never do it although I used to dance quite a lot. ([Falling-day did not say that this behavior was at all symbolic of the feeding birds.]

(5) ‘“‘The singers continue to sing as long as anyone continues speaking. If no one speaks after the gifts are gone, that is the end of the dancing.”

There is a special song at the end, but Falling-day has never heard it called at Tonawanda ‘‘to lay down the fans.”

After the last song when they have finished dancing, they lay down the fans and rattles. They get up and retire to change their clothes.

Now, the conductor divides the crackers and packages of chewing tobacco in as

many equal piles as there are dancers. It is ready when they return. Then he distributes to each one his share of crackers and tobacco.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FEAST

“After that, they bite the meat that is passed like crows (wa-diga’hga’”’). It is chicken. The conductor, for he is always a man, passes the chicken counterclockwise.” Falling-day never saw a pig’s head—has heard of its being used occasionally. ‘‘Dew Eagle will eat any kind of meat.”

Falling-day is anxious to know what kind of a bird shada’ge-a”’ is in English. He thinks it is a pretty bird like the eagle that lives above or in the clouds somewhere—not a dirty or ugly bird like the condor. ‘‘They say this is a pretty bird. I think it is lamajery (??)— like the eagle and about the same size.”” He knows only one kind.

Now the Speaker has to announce that they are through. He speaks for the host [hod¢’Sa-ni-], and his words are as if they were the host’s words. He is thank- ful that so many people are willing to come to the meeting, and he thanks the messenger who brought them there and conducted the ritual. Then he thanks everybody, the singers and dancers, etc. Then he says he hopes that this cere- mony will help the sick one, no matter what ails him. He asks the Creator to make strength for this one. After that, he says “‘let’s all hope that we have helped her [the one who got up the dance]. After that, then thanks (gang’nyok) again. Then he says we must wait for the corn soup, or hominy—anyway the feast (tgaya’swa-ye-’).

The conductor has to divide up the corn soup. There are no chunks of meat. (1) The host has to fill the pail of the conductor; (2) now

Fanron] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 63

the conductor has to get a pail from the Speaker (hatha’-ha’) and give him his soup first after himself; (3) at the command from the conductor, ‘“‘Ready now, set down your pails [kettles], [ha’ o-ng¢h djing’dza’ge’g’), and they set their pails down near the kettle;” (4) when the manager has filled the pails, going ladle by ladle from pail to pail in a counterclockwise circuit about the kettle, he cries, “‘ready now again pick them up”’ (ha’o neh nai’ dgsadje’’k) and the members retrieve their pails, and as he says, ‘“‘Now scatter and fly whither you will” (o’neh ne’ ganyo’ ge’s he’sga‘die’’’¢), they file out the door and disperse in the darkness.

To supplement Falling-day’s account of the Eagle Society ritual, I consulted Hair-burned-off, Speaker of Tonawanda Longhouse and Speaker for the Eagle Society at Helper’s and He-is-coming’s meeting. Of course, he knew that I had attended several rituals.

(1) When the medicine company has gathered at the designated place, the Speaker arises, removes his hat and says:

Now you all listen—members of the medicine company (honotcino’’g¢’shg).

We have come to this house [hong’sgwadenyg’]. We came because a man was appointed to go from house to house to tell the members of the society to come to this place.

That is all for the moment.

Now we must say what the Creator has ordained we should say whenever we start our ceremonies. (Here we return thanks to all the spirits up to the Creator. Sometimes I only say a few words, but this depends on how I feel, how serious is the occasion, the time we commence, and if it is late I only say a few.)

Now the speaker mentions the name of the person who has invited all who belong to the society. Now this person that is putting up the ceremony of striking {gane’’gwii’e’’] belongs to the society, and he has sponsored it before when he was pretty ill, and it has helped him. After the ceremony he became better, but since that time he has never had any subsequent ceremony. So now he is sick again. He has used some medicine: the roots, bark, and leaves of the various plants which our Creator has given us to use, but it does not seem to help him. Now he is recalling that he belongs to the Eagle Society. He thinks that perhaps if he puts up the ceremony of Striking-the-stick or Shaking-a-fan, he might get better again. He has been considering for several days how he will sponsor the dance. It is difficult because he is helpless. His folks [relatives and housemates] have discovered what he wants, and so they have decided to help him. They have decided to procure all the things that we use when we hold the Eagle Dance.

Now all of you have come to help him, and we must use our power [gaha’sdeshe’] to help him. Now his folks are ready now to have the striking ritual to help him recover from the sickness. They have provided a feast, and it is ready: hominy corn [’ononde-’] and pig’s (bear’s) meat [gwisgwis owa-’] for the soup, since after the ceremony we must have that in which to dip our bills [¢dwadenyonda’so’] '® (for this is the feast which we eat after the Eagle Dance) ; his folks have ready also presents to distribute on striking the stick [yene’egwa’’istha’]; and they have pro- vided that which you like to eat [egdiga’hga.-’] and it will go around after the cer-

18 Any member of the medicine company—any bird—has a bill, especially Eagle.

64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY (Buu. 156

emony when we say ¢swa’tcing’ge’’sho?eswe-he-k o-ne wa’agwaga’hga-’—you of the medicine society, all of you now, we are about to feast like ravens.”

Now then they appointed a man to notify the members of the Eagle Society. Now he is already to commence. He has a man to sing [name mentioned] and two to help him. [There may be only one helper, but there should always be two.] Now when we sponsor certain kinds of dances, a ritual of any kind of animal so- ciety, when we wish them to help us we must use the genuine tobacco which our Creator has given us. We must throw it in the fire. Now he [the conductor] hasappointedamanwhowilldoit{[mentionsthenameofthe man]. That is all.

(2) Tobacco invocation.—Then comes the tobacco invocation.

I have heard them sing the first phrase of the song when offering the tobacco at Canada. Alex Clute [Seneca of Tonawanda] used to do that here, but he got that somewhere else. He brought that here from Cattaraugus. Sano’’gai-s (long-horns) burned the tobacco at an Eagle Dance at my daughter’s at New- town, Cattaraugus, when I was visiting there and he sang a little ways through the first song. This is not a Tonawanda custom.

Hair-burned-off heard about an old man here at Tonawanda who, when he offered the tobacco and said, ‘“‘You of the medicine company, you have this to pick at, now he says ‘here is your tobacco that you may hear our words, now here is your bird for eating,’ ” went so far as to pick up the bird and throw it in the fire, saying, ‘“You have got the bird, now it is up to you to eat;it.” “Now the dancers and singers and speakers had nothing to eat. That is howhe did when they asked him to make the tobacco offering.”

(3) Then they have a little meat which is cut in small slices; the conductor gives that to each member.

(4) Now after that the conductor gives the drum to someone. A man hollers hu‘ hu‘ and the man who was given the drum strikes and makes a speech, presenting the drum to the appointed singer. He says:

Well, I was appointed first by the conductor to sing and so I have the drum and the rattles, and I have brought them here to the place he designated, and I was ready to sing. But after I heard the Speaker mention the name of another, I notice that he has nothing. Now he must use the drum and rattles. I will lend it to him for the night, but I will not give it to him.

(5) Whoop and Song I.—Now the singer takes the drum and the dancer yells and Song I commences. °

The conductor gives someone the rattle and feather fan.

He strikes the stick and says about the same things as the preced- ing speaker. The striker announces that he has the fan and rattle because he is a member of the society, but that he sees the appointed dancers lack fans and rattles, so he decides to lend one set in lieu of dancing himself as he pretended to have been invited.

11 “The medicine company [hongtcino’ge’] are ravens [ga’hga’shg’]. The head ones are the giant ravens— singers [ga’hga’go-wa-’]; crow [ga’ ga-]. We tear off meat in our bills like the great birds whom we imitate,

crying ga’-’. Raven is also messenger [hadja’swas] for the Eagle Society and the Great Medicine Company. Whenever he sees anything, he hesitates and cries out the news,’’

Fanon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 65

(6) Dancer whoops and Song IJ.—Then the Speaker (hatha’-ha’) gets up and announces ;

We have already heard in the announcements that they have provided presents for the strikers. Now I have them here.'¥8 Now the conductor gave me orders to say that whoever strikes may have his own way to say whatever he wishes when he strikes, but he must not use any bad language that will hurt people. We have some foolish words [gawenowe’hda:she’], but we know just how far to go and yet not hurt anyone’s feelings. One should hope that the sick one will get better. Perhaps someone will wish the sick one may recover, and he may return thanks to our Creator who has given us our lives and this earth to roam on, and he may consider that he may get help by asking the four messengers or the Creator to help the sick one to go about again on the earth.

(7) Whoop and Song III.—

“‘Now it is open for anyone to speak.

“Sometimes two strike at once, as they did at Helper’s and they both continue to speak at once until one quits.”

He recalled how He-strikes-the-rushes had ridiculed Awl-breaker at Helper’s meeting, and explained why Awl-breaker went home early.

“Jesse was too hard on da’ho and he left. Jesse went too far. Da’hg did not show up at the next few meetings of the society, and then he finally returned.”

Hair-burned-off seems entirely unfamiliar with Jesse’s concept of a joking privilege with one’s father’s clansman. I went on to explain what I understood the old Newtown pattern to be—spatial separation of the moieties and joking across the room. He insists that this did not occur at the Newtown meetings which he attended.

You can joke anybody so long as you don’t hurt him. Jesse went too far. Da’ho is a much better speaker than Jesse. He is witty and Jesse was getting beat. Jesse finally arose and said, “If he wants to fight with me, I’ll get the better of him.”” Da’ho did not reply. After another song, Jesse got up a second time and said, “I frequently see him returning from Akron. Next time I will stop him and talk with him.”’ Now I myself would be afraid. No one quite

understood what Jesse meant. Anyone would feel anxious. Jesse could not take it because he was getting beat.

The general idea seems to be that Jesse should have had more

respect for an older man, particularly one of the chiefs and ritual speakers, who is usually good natured and quite defenseless.

(8) The Speaker makes this announcement:

After they have used up the presents provided by the host, then the conductor tells the Speaker [to announce] that this is the last strike to be made on the host, but that this should not end the dance, merely because the presents provided for the strikers to distribute are all gone. Whoever would strike again must dig in his pocket and furnish for himself presents to give away with his striking, his shoes, perhaps his pants, a cow [this is considered a joke] because it is always

18 In making this announcement at Helper’s he said that even the wax paper on the soda crackers was medicine—good for blisters. ‘The idea is to make the sick one laugh and in that way forget his pains.”

66 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 156

money. In the older days whatever they gave was considered medicine for the sick one. Whoever has money may strike, etc. That’s all.

(9) The dance continues as long as anyone continues to speak.

Then they sing a special song which is slower than the others, slowing up toward the end. This is called “laying down the fans” [yene’eye’ndahgwa’]. Here the dancers lay down their fans and rattles, and the singers lay the drum and rattles on the floor. ‘Then the conductor picks up the drum and rattles and the fans which they have laid on the floor, and he puts them away.

“‘Now he divides up the gifts: the crackers and tobacco. He gives it to the singer, his helper, the dancers, the Speaker, and the tobacco thrower, and himself, dividing it equally.”’

(10) Then he grabs the bird and says, ‘‘ You of the society have in mind now to eat [swatcino’ge’shg’ eswehe‘k o’n¢e wa’a‘gwaga’hga”’].”’

The society say ga” [high tone] like crows.

He goes over to the host. He passes the bird to the sick man first. [When conductor] I go next to the head singer and his helpers and then the dancers, and then I go around to everyone who belongs to the society so that they can have a bite . . . until they get tired . . . Then I take home what is left . . . the bones [he shrugged his shoulders and grinned]. The conductor gets whatever is left of the feast. Sometimes there is a bit left for soup.

Then he tells the Speaker [and the speaker announces this—he is speaking for the host]:

Now, we have done. People have in mind that we have done. And therefore, I give thanks to the singers and also the dancers and the people who have come to this dance. Tell them that I give thanks.

Then the Speaker arises.

Now we have in mind that we have finished the ritual. In the first part we heard that the sick one has been ill for sometime. Now he wants the Medicine Company to help him because he belongs to that society. It has helped him before. He hopes that it will help him again, but we also must hope that this dance will help him. So we all came here to help him. We hope that the Four Messengers and the Creator will give us the power to help him with this dance [ceremony] so that he will recover and his people will feel better; it will elevate their minds. We must keep that in our minds after we get up and we have all gone out.

So now his folks have hominy for the feast. 'The conductor will divide it for us.

Now we have done, but we must go through again that which the Creator has given us to return thanks to the Four Messengers, our great leader [Handsome Lake, the prophet] and our Creator where he resides [and he repeats the gang’ nygk]. Now we have finished.

The conductor divides the feast. He cries, ‘Come now set down your pails! |ha’ o-n¢ djing’dza’ge’a’].”

When he finishes, he tells the Speaker that he is done.

Then the Speaker says, “‘pick up your pails and fly away—go where you are wont to fly [{ha’ o-neh nai’ dosa-dje’:k o’ne ganyo” ge¢’s h¢’’sga-die’’¢].”’

FENTON] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 67

THE SONGS

The present name for the Eagle Dance at Tonawanda is gane’’ gwi’e’’, ‘to strike a fan,’”’ but Robert Shanks, who recorded it for M. C. Randle and the writer in 1936, declared, ‘‘The real name of this dance is gane’’oda‘dg’, to shake the feather fan.” (Thus it appears in Morgan’s list as Scalp Dance.) The speeches referred to war records. ‘They used to wear a feather bustle on the rump and between the shoulders, Shanks thought, but he alone made this statement.

(1) Before every song an appointed whooper shouts: ‘‘pa‘hai-he:.”’

Leader: “‘yowehane.”’

Chorus: ‘‘yowehane.”’ ¥

Here someone presents the drum to the first singer or, later, a fan and rattle to a dancer. Every time there is a song, one at a time they present: (1) drum, (2) horn rattle to first singer’s helper, (3) a fan and rattle to a dancer, (4) (or (5)) someone takes over distribution of presents. The order is whoop ‘“‘pa hai’,” then song, speech, present drum or what else, dance. Dancers must have horn or tiny gourd rattles.

(2) Second introductory song:

waheya waheyong heyo’ong: (3) In the middle of this song the dance begins, recognizable by

change in tempo. waheya waheya heyong’ goyaheya heyong’ waheya waheya heyong’”? (4) (7) wiyeha wiyeha wiyeba néhe’eh we’ha’yo wiyeha ne’he’’yeh (eh)

(5) In the first rendition of the text the leader with his drum

sings alone. yonowiyo: honowiyo’oh:] yong’wiyo nowi’yo waheya ng’wiyo-o-o no’wiyo goyaheya heya’a‘

(6) goyoheya heya’a‘:] (ya) Fed (8) weyaha wiyahao

wiye yane(ni) ng hanehe:] :weyaha: ning hanehe:

(9) weha, hiyo’ong’9 heyo’ong’: weha yo-ngo heyo’gng’:]}

19 This song resembles one of the Little Water Medicine renewal songs, to which rite Eagle Dance is linked. (Shanks says the priest doesn’t sing. After tobacco invocation at Cattaraugus and Allegany, the priest hums over the first song before the ritual commences.) —W. N. F.

20 Shanks says “repeat this song twice.’”? This song and the other would be used twice in its (their) entirety, stopping for a speech and then repeating it before singing the next song.—W.N.F.

68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY | BULL. 156

After this came several optional songs, omitted by Shanks.

(10) This is the final song, when they lay down the fans. The dancers know this is the end of the dance. It is usually sung when the speeches have begun to pall—humor has run out of the meeting.

yowadjine’he gonodiya’awe(wi) heyong yowadjine ya’ahe heyo’ong’:]

End of song, not complete on record, should end with short

“heyo’’ong’.”

THE ONONDAGA CONDOR DANCE

At Onondaga Reservation, south of Syracuse, N. Y., I readily found two boys who had danced in recent Eagle Dance meetings. Floyd Henhawk, Eel Clan, a slight likable young lad beyond 20, who had lost an eye at jacksticks or lacrosse, said he had danced at the last meeting. He promptly recited a fair outline of the ritual, but he recommended his friend, George Allison Thomas, an Onondaga of the same clan, then age 25, who proved reticent but well-informed. I had met his father, Chief George Thomas, who the boys told me is a speaker at longhouse meetings. We worked at the Thomas house, and Mrs. Thomas’ remarks, interjected from her station near the cook stove, comprise much the best of the following information. Where possible it is credited to the informant. To- ward noon, Chief George Thomas arrived home to confirm and supplement our morning’s progress.

At Onondaga, as on the Seneca Reservations, the Eagle Dance Society membership is composed of followers of the Handsome Lake Religion—‘ the real and genuine people” [(heng’gwe hgweka’:’) (ggwe’’ oweka,”’ (S.))].

The ritual (gane’’gwa'e’) (gane’’gwi’ e” (S.)) and the member- ship (hadine’gwa/’’is) are derived from one stem with the Seneca.

Informants seemed unfamiliar with the history of the society except that “it has been carried on for a long time.” ‘Before Handsome Lake came here (1815) the Onondagas used liquor at the dances; since then they have food to eat.’? Mrs. Thomas had heard her grandfather relate the legend of the boy who was carried away in a hollow log by the bird, but she did not offer it as an origin legend. Chief Thomas said it has been handed down for a long time, although his wife thought he might know the history.

Onondaga do not associate Eagle (skadjie’-na’) with the dance

Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 69

but a bird like the condor whom they call ha’’guks.2!_ This bird lives beyond sight; Chief George Thomas knew of but one kind (species).

EQUIPMENT

The society meets when anyone is taken ill. Prerequisites for a meeting are: (1) Indian tobacco (oye’gwa ho’-we) for the invocation; (2) about 12 packages of chewing tobacco for speakers to distribute among the dancers; (3) soup (ono-nda’),” or specifically hulled white corn soup (oneho’ -hgwa’);”* (4) a chicken to boil in the soup; and (5) a feather fan. The Onondaga fan has 4 to 5 feathers suspended vertically from the quills, instead of horizontally.

““My younger boy belongs to the society. At the [recent] New Year’s dance, somebody promised that they would give him one. They have to make it” * (Mrs. T.).

The dancer uses any rattle (gasda’we¢’she’) from the stock of cow- horn rattles. He holds the fan in his left hand and the rattle in the right, depending on whether the dancer is right- or left-handed. If he is left-handed he holds the rattle in his left hand (sayeno’ga-di’). “Right hand is ha-y¢ene’hgwi” (F. H.). Onondaga to shake a fan (gane’edakdi’) is cognate for the old Seneca (gane’’oda-doq’).

“Sometimes they still stand money up in a crack in the floor. If a dancer can get it in his mouth while dancing, it is his. My son there could do that’? (Mrs. T.). Each dancer has one fan and one rattle according to the number of dancers. Sometimes there is one dancer, but “if you can get four or five, that is preferable” (Mrs. 1 bey

Chicken feathers are used for the fans, but hawk feathers are preferable, or better still eagle feathers (G. T.).

Mrs. Thomas has seen bark cylinder rattles, but white men have been continually buying things at Onondaga for years. She never heard of a whistle in the Condor Dance.

A query concerning setting a twined corn-husk tray filled with Indian tobacco on the floor for the members elicited the reply, ‘‘They only put tobacco in the stove [invocation]. They do not smoke a pipe. I have only seen the pipe used at Condolences’ (Mrs. T.).

Instead of the regular striped crotched pole and beater, “‘they use any stick for a beater (ene’gwa’’ist‘a’).”

31 Chief Howard Pierce, Tonawanda Seneca, Bear Clan, claims that once while he was a tribal delegate to a Senate Indian hearing, he saw the bird, a condor, in the Washington Zoo. The Seneca call it ‘cloud dweller.”” Howard has dreamed of the bird flying down and dancing beforehim. He burned alittle Indian sacred tobacco which he carried and it flew back. The Cayuga and Onondaga in Canada know it as i a ee (S.).

23 ono’hgwa’ (S.).

% During the dream guessing, whoever guesses what the person needs—some object symbolic of the ritual,

a friend, etc.—has to furnish that object and sponsor the ritual implied in the proposition, This is also an old Seneca custom. (He-strikes-the-rushes.)

70 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLn. 156

“We get chickens and put them in the corn soup. Long ago we always had that [chickens for the corn soup]. We put two chickens in one boiler’ (Mrs. T.). So apparently the wash boiler has become the cooking vessel for feast soups at Onondaga as among the modern

Seneca. MEMBERSHIP

Membership in the society comes through sickness and a cure by the ritual. Mrs. T. considers dreams an infrequent mode of entrance. Usually some fortuneteller (haksa’kdgk) tells the person to join. He uses tea for divination.

To a query about Seneca hene’-yo, Mrs. T. distinguished for Onondaga, “‘hene’-yok is a prophet and he can tell what happened way back. An old man [here at Onondaga] was called this as a personal name; but he did make prophecies.”’

““My son [George, Jr.] would have been one had they taken care of it [the caul over his head].

“They should have preserved that, instead they let it go down the river [Onondaga Creek]. I wish they had kept it. Yes, I wish they did; anyway, I can tell [prophesy] pretty good sometimes” (George A. Thomas).

On questioning, there seems to be no special training for clair- voyants. It is born in them. There is no ceremony to make those who were born with a caul more potent.2> Mrs. Thomas’ little younger son was sick, and the fortuneteller used tea. The fortune- teller said he needed Condor Dance to be performed for him. George Alanson Thomas does not belong to the society. However, Floyd Henhawk is a member. Floyd was sick, but he does not remember how and why he joined when he was quite young.

Preparation for a meeting.—Mrs. T. said,

They used to hang the fan out near the fence on a pole all day before the meeting. There was only one fan on the pole, just one.

Then a man goes from house to house to notify the people. He is called ‘‘news carrier’ [chot‘ogdindi’]. He tells what kind of a dance, the place where it will occur, he instructs the person to take a pail, and says, ‘‘You go there and strike the stick and talk [gswane’gwa’e’s’a’].”” It is a long message. They generally have it at night. He chooses the singers and dancers and notifies them. He tells the singer to be sure and go there and sing.

At night they all go straight to the meeting. Having arrived, they goin. One sits anywhere. Then the conductor arranges the seating when the dance [ritual] begins. The messenger becomes the ritual manager or conductor, “he takes charge’ [hoste‘i-s-di’; hosdeisdg’ (S.)].

35 At Tonawanda, Robert Tahamont’s son, Dave, was born with a caul, and Harrison Ground suggested putting him through some ceremony to increase his potency. Nevertheless, he is reputedly clever at finding things. The belief is strong.

Fenton] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 71

MOIETY PATTERNING

The dual division seems an important aspect of Onondaga cere- monial life. Mrs. T. remarked, “I am Eel Clan; Turtle Clan has to help me with everything.” The phratries take their names from the place they meet during their separation for dream guessing at Mid- winter Festival.

They of the mudhouse (dehodidaige’) : They of the longhouse, ‘‘Four house corners” (gaye-hodinghske-) :

Eel Turtle Bear (now extinct) Beaver Deer Wolf Hawk Snipe

Moiety patterning is preferable at the Condor Dance but appar- ently not strictly followed. They do not sit opposite facing each other according to phratries.

RITUAL PATTERN

An appointed speaker returns thanks.

A priest burns tobacco, and the song commences during the prayer. Mrs. Thomas remarked, ‘‘It always gives me shivers when they sing the first song while he is still burning the tobacco.’

When he finishes speaking, the tempo increases and the dancing commences. The drummer (tainagetskwa:s, ‘‘he raises the song’’) sings the first song without the drum.

Speeches.—There is a whooper. Notes do not indicate that he whoops during tobacco invocation, before the song.

An appointed speaker interrupts the song by beating the stick and presents the drum and rattles together to the first and second singers (hadenawa’se’‘k). Everyone knows who is going to speak. He says they have designated a certain fellow to sing, but he himself is a good singer, well able to do so, but that he will accede to their wishes Gh).

Whoop and Song II.—There is a man appointed to present the fan. Usually the fan belongs to the sick person, and the speaker is to give it to the dancer. Moiety alinement is said to be unimportant.

The second speaker in presenting the ‘‘flag’’2? tells that he, himself, was invited to this place and he has brought along the fan that he has been using many years since the time when he was still young and able to dance. You see old men can’t

bend; they are too stiff to dance. They are no longer flexible. Then he gives the fan to the dancer. [F. H. H.; gives fan and rattle.]

28 The song which the priest sings while burning tobacco ascends on the tobacco fumes to the Dew Eagle. The Seneca say thisis the only part of the ritual that he hears. The priest waves thefansonthesmoke. (He- strikes-the-rushes.)

#1 The calumet brought north to Albany by the peace-making Catawba in the mideighteenth century was first likened to a flag (p. 166).

72 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [ Bun. 156

Whoop and Song IJI—A man has been appointed to present rattles to the extra dancers. There are ordinarily as many speakers as there are dancers, and they speak one at a time. For the next dancer the speaker repeats that he is no longer flexible enough to dance but that he will give the rattle to the dancer. ‘Yes, sometimes he tells the dancer to try and beat the other dancer.”

The dancer is called gane’’gwa’e’ deha’tk‘wa’, ‘‘striking-fan dancer.”

Whoop and Song IV.—A man (at Tonawanda it is the Speaker) makes a speech about the tobacco which he says is to be distributed by the speakers. He says, “All of you are [swadwenonya’’da’] to talk and transfer the tobacco to a pile for the dancers and singers.” After the ceremony (‘Gives one tobacco’’), the headman distributes it among the dancers and singers.

Whoop and Song V, etc-—‘‘Every successive speaker transfers a package of tobacco [from the pile] over to the conductor, and he puts it aside for the dancers and singers” (F. H. H.).

Whoop and Song VI, etc.—‘When the tobacco which the sick person has bought for the ritual is gone, the speakers may use money and present it to the sick person at the same time wishing him early recovery from his ailments. The speaker tells him to buy medicine”’ (Mrs. T.).

“Now when they use money, they joke and make fun of each other to stimulate the sick person so that he will forget his illness”’ (Mrs. T.).

All the speakers are men. Jokes are exchanged back and forth, but a speaker can tease anyone present: any relative, his own brother, or his father (Mrs. T. and boys).

‘When the tobacco is gone, the joking helps to heal the patient; but previously while giving tobacco, they do not joke, but ask the Creator to grant favors and help the sick person” (Chief G. Thomas).

With reference to joking, ‘‘We are divided into clans and there are two divisions. When we gather at public places people of one division should get together for they are brothers.”” Moiety joking is common, it is reciprocal, and it is preferred; “‘but if your brother jokes you, you may answer. No matter who jokes, it is approprate to answer.”

Regarding a joking relationship between children of clansmen, I merely learned that people who are related joke; it depends on the people, and the whole practice is not seemingly rigidly patterned. As among the Seneca, this whole pattern of striking and joking occurs also in the war dances.

The balance of the ritual is quite similar to the Tonawanda variant, and one notes the linguistic similarities to the Onondaga and Cayuga variants at Grand River, Ontario, which may mean that the ceremony

FEnTon] IROQUOIS EAGLE DANCE 73

prevailed among the Onondaga and Cayuga before the present Canadi- an Iroquois migrated to Grand River.

THE EAGLE DANCE ON GRAND RIVER (SIX NATIONS RESERVE), CANADA

The Eagle Dance ritual at the Six Nations Reserve has been de- scribed for the Cayuga by Speck (1949, pp. 111-113), the Onondaga Longhouse version of the songs is available on a record with a brief notice of the Eagle Society (Fenton, 1942, pp. 29-30), and both the Onondaga and Cayuga rituals are described and analyzed by Kurath in her contribution to this volume. Only new material will be added

here. THE ONONDAGA CEREMONY

At Onondaga Longhouse, the second day of the Midwinter Festival is given over to rites performed in response to dreams. Participation is restricted to members, and the sixth listed is Eagle Dance Society (gane’gwa’’e’’, “Striking a dried skin.’’) (I have often wondered whether a scalp was formerly struck or waved in this ceremony? Had Simeon Gibson (pl. 16, 2) lived we might have made a book of his notes begun in the summer of 1940.)

In the private rite described by Mrs. Kurath, the Logan family dominated the roles. My impression is that the rite is less formal here than among the Seneca. It is also less elaborate.

I have long suspected that the Eagle Dance of the Iroquois on Grand River is derived from that of the Seneca. Kurath has now demon- strated identical and related songs in three cycles: Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga. But there are also close resemblances between the lore of the ceremony at Onondaga, New York, and Grand River. There was a strong strain of Seneca participation in the Onondaga Longhouse on Grand River. The Seneca band was small and the Seneca Long- house stands close by. They exchange singers. The Onondaga and Seneca have intermarried, and Seneca chiefs have been speakers of Onondaga Longhouse. The maternal antecedents of Chief John A. Gibson, the most renowned speaker of Onondaga Longhouse, came out to Grand River from the Seneca Reservation at Buffalo Creek. It was Tom Smoke, a Seneca chief, who always participated at Onondaga Longhouse, who taught the Eagle Dance to Onondaga Chief Joseph Logan (Fenton, 1942, p. 30).

THE SONGS

Since about half of the 16 songs recorded are included on the pub- lished record and the texts are printed in the program notes, they are not reprinted. I leave the description of the dance to Kurath who has

74 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Buut. 156

transcribed the Logan version, analyzed it, and compared it with other local and tribal variants.

Chief Logan (pl. 16, 2), in the course of our recording, related a variant of the roc or bird abductor legend, which will be included in the appropriate place (p. 90).

THE CAYUGA EAGLE SOCIETY CEREMONY AT SOUR SPRINGS LONGHOUSE

The Cayuga Eagle Society ceremony originally was contributed to the dissertation by Speck. That chapter has now been published verbatim (Speck, 1949, pp. 111-112), with substantial additions which Speck added after reading my 1987 dissertation in manuscript and making further inquiries of his informants (Speck, 1949, pp. 112-114). Speck’s account and his observations have now been checked and sub- stantially added to by Kurath, who describes the public ceremony of the Eagle Society which she witnessed at Sour Springs in 1948. The reader is referred to her