IROQUOIS — FENTON 413 



their appearance among the Seneca of western New York relatively 

 late in the seventeenth century considerably after they were first 

 observed by the French at Huronia, because Wintemberg and Parker 

 find that a type of pipe known as the "blowing face" was first evolved 

 during the post-European period of Neutral, Huron, Tionontati, and 

 Seneca culture.^ Furthermore, during the colonial period the clay 

 pipes were imitated in stone, and such a pipe with a blowing spirit 

 mask facing the smoker has turned up recently near a late historic 

 sugaring campsite of the Complanter band of Senecas (pi. 16). 



Narratives of early travelers. — From the earliest European con- 

 tacts with the Huron and Iroquois over 3 centuries ago, the explorers 

 and missionaries, while they do not always specifically mention masks, 

 at least describe ceremonies that are now connected with masks in 

 the modern rituals. The behavior of the actors is older than the 

 form of the masks, and it would seem that the ritualized Iroquois 

 masked shamanism that we observe in practice today has kept alive 

 old tricks of the Huron Oki or medicine man, who was not 

 always masked. The Oki handled hot coals and blew ashes on his 

 patient, and Champlain (1616) witnessed the hysterical frenzy of 

 medicine men and neurotic women who walked "on all fours like 

 beasts" until the masked company were summoned to displace their 

 possession by blowing upon them to the din of their turtle rattles; 

 and they "parade the length of the village while the feast is being 

 prepared for the masquers, who return very tired, having taken 

 enough exercise to empty the kettle of its Migan." *" In another place 

 he describes the beggar maskers, men and women, visiting each 

 other's villages much as they now go from house to house at Mid- 

 winter. In 1623 Gabriel Sagard, whom Champlain invited to 

 spend an exciting winter in Huronia, found the Okis still in business, 

 and he witnessed an unmistakable example of the doorkeeper's role 

 in the modern ritual. The actor wore a bearskin garb reminiscent of 

 those in use among Delaware and Onondaga maskers of recent times, 

 although a wooden mask is not mentioned. 



I have seen ... a bear skin covering the whole body, the ears erect on top 

 of their head, their face covered up except for the eyes ; and these persons were 

 only acting as doorkeepers or jesters and took no part in the dance except at 

 intervals, because they were for a different purjwse." 



*» Wintemberg, W. J., Distinguishing characteristics of Algonklan and Iroquolan cultures. 

 Nat. Mus. Canada, Ann. Rep. 1929, p. 78, Ottawa, 1931 ; Roebuck prehistoric village 

 site . . . Nat. Mus. Canada, Bull. 83, p. 75, 1936 ; Parker, A. C, The archeologlcal history 

 of New York. New York State Mus. Bull. 235. p. 146, 1922. 



» Champlain, Samuel de, Voyages . . ., vol. 3, pp. 153-155. The Champlain Society, 

 Toronto, 1929. 



*s Sagard, Father Gabriel, The long journey to the country of the Hurons, p. 117. 

 The Champlain Society, Toronto, 1939. 



