542 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



The institution of the condoling and installation council was im- 

 portant and most essential to the maintenance of the integrity of 

 their state, for the ordinances of the league constitution required 

 that the number of the chiefs in the federal council should be kept 

 intact. So to the orenda, or magic power, believed to emanate arid 

 flow from the words, the chants and songs, and the acts of this coun- 

 cil, did the statesmen and the ancients of the Iroquois peoples look 

 for the conservation of their political integrity and for the promo- 

 tion of their welfare. 



So potent and terrible was the orenda of the ritual of the mourn- 

 ing installation council regarded, that it was thought imperative to 

 hold this council only during the autumn or winter months. Since 

 its orenda dealt solely with the effects of death and with the restora- 

 tion and preservation of the living from death, it was believed that 

 it would be ruinous and destructive to the growing seeds, plants, 

 and fruits, were this council held during the days of birth and 

 growth in spring and in summer. To overcome the power of death, 

 to repair his destructive work, and to restore to its normal potency 

 the orenda or magic power of the stricken father side or mother 

 side of the league, and so making the entire league whole, were some 

 of its motives. 1 



In eulogizing their completed labors the founders of the league 

 represented and described it as a great human tree of flesh and blood, 

 noted for size and length of leaf, which was also represented as being 

 set up on a great white mat — that is to say, on a broad foundation 

 of peace, and whose top pierced the visible sky. It was conceived 

 as having four great white roots composed of living men and women, 

 extending respectively eastward, southward, westward, and north- 

 ward, among the tribes of men who were urgently invited to unite 

 with the league by laying their heads on the great white root nearest 

 to them. It was further declared that should some enemy of this 

 great tree of flesh and blood approach it and should drive his hatchet 

 into one of its roots, blood indeed would flow from the wound, but 

 it was said further that this strange tree through its orenda would 

 cause that assailant to vomit blood before he could escape very far. 

 In certain laws the federal chiefs are denominated standing trees, 

 who as essential components of the great tree of the league are ab- 

 sorbed in it, symbolically, and who are thus said to have one head, 

 one heart, one mind, one blood, and one dish of food. 



The ties which unite a tribe with its gods — ties of faith and the 

 bonds of duty and obligation of service which bind the persons of 

 the tribe unitedly together, ties of blood and affinity — are the 

 strongest operative among tribal men and women. Every unde- 



1 See the writer's article on this subject in Holmes Anniversary Volume, Washington, 

 1916. 



