[HALE] AN IROQUOIS CONDOLING COUNCIL 47 
torial. names of English peers, to be titles of honour for their successors. 
Chief George’s title, which he had received from this ancient progenitor 
on his mother’s side, was Teyonhehkon, meaning “ Double Life.” I have 
known many other bearers of these antique titles (several of whom will 
be named in this narrative), and among them a modern Hiawatha, a 
handsome young chief, whose pleasing face aud graceful bearing might 
fairly enough have represented the poetical hero whom Longfellow, using 
the licence of his art, has transported to the shores of Lake Superior and 
made the Ojibway lover of Minnehaha. Mr. Johnson held also a humbler 
but more lucrative title, that of Government Interpreter for the Reserve, 
which made him the ex-officio aide and executive officer of the Visiting 
Superintendent of the Reserve, Col. Gilkison. He had been well educated 
by the English missionaries, and had married a missionary’s sister, an 
accomplished English lady, a kinswoman of one of the most admired of 
American authors, Mr. W. D. Howells. That the children of this union 
should be above the average, in mind as well as in person, might be 
expected. Those who have seen and heard one of them, Miss E. Pauline 
Johnson, the charming poet and reciter, will know the source of the 
grace and talent which have delighted many audiences. 
Though I had attended many public ceremonies and festivals of the 
Indians, in company with these and other friends, I had not, when my 
book was composed, had the opportunity of witnessing the rarest and by 
far the most important of them all. I had, however, given a chapter to 
it, derived partly from the reports of others who had often, attended it, 
and partly from two remarkable native manuscripts which are described 
in the volume. This ceremony is the “Condoling Council,’ at which a 
deceased chief is publicly lamented, and his successor is endowed with his 
office and title, and is formally received into the Great Council of the 
league. It is styled by Morgan the “ Mourning Council,” but my [roquois 
friends preferred the rendering which I have given to the native name, . 
as more clearly expressing the sympathetic nature of the ceremony. 
Morgan’s description is excellent, and any one who refers to it will see in 
the narrative now to be given from my journal how closely, after the 
lapse of more than thirty years from the time he wrote, and amid widely 
ditterent surroundings, the ancient rites have been adhered to. If I am 
not mistaken, the mingling of civilized customs and manners with these 
antique ceremonials adds to them a piquancy which makes up for the loss 
of some of the solemnity that anciently attended them. The following 
description is a literal copy of my journal written at the time, with merely 
the omission of a few personal matters and the addition of some needed 
explanations. I have retained, moreover, certain particulars which will 
give evidence of the remarkable advance in civilization that had been 
made by these Indians in less than a century. They may help to dissi- 
pate the prejudices, if any still exist, which at one time pronounced the 
