[HALE] AN IROQUOIS CONDOLING COUNCIL 31 
ant chief of the new holder of the title. The assistant chiefs are not only 
the executive officers of their high chiefs, but in the council they are 
expected to do most of the speaking. The duty of the high chiefs is to 
consult together and decide. It is below their dignity to expend their 
forces in mere speech-making. The assistants have no special titles as 
chiefs, but continue to be called by their original names. They are, how- 
ever, usually installed at Condoling Councils, like the high chiefs. Some- 
times, however, of late years, they are simply appointed by the Central 
Council at Ohsweken. It was in this way that he himself had been lately 
made a chief, the honour having been conferred without any intimation 
to him that it was coming. He is the assistant of my friend, John Fraser. 
While we were conversing, the sound of a measured chant was heard 
in the distance. All eyes were turned on the neighbouring woods, from 
which was presently seen to issue the portly form of the Cayuga chief 
Wage (Hadwennine, “ His words are moving ”), the high constable of the 
Reserve, who is commonly known as Sheriff Wage. With the dignity of 
a Roman pontifex, he led the chant and the procession. Behind him fol- 
lowed the line of chiefs of the younger nations—Cayugas, Oneidas, Tus- 
caroras, Delawares, Nanticokes, and Tutelos, for so far has the confederacy 
been enlarged by later adoptions. At least all these should have been— 
and possibly were—represented in the score of farmer-like men, of grave 
and swarthy visages, who followed the melodious high constable. Beyond 
them came the brightest part of the spectacle—a little troop of women 
and girls, dressed in the gayest style of the very pretty fashion which the 
Indian women of Canada, much to the credit of their good taste, have 
adopted. Trim bodices, short, spreading skirts of brilliant colours— 
usually some shade of red,—gay, variegated scarfs and shawls, with broad- 
rimmed straw hats or bright-hued kerchiefs, and prettily embroidered 
leggings, make a very attractive garb, especially when seen in a proces- 
sion or group. When the party came near us the singing ceased. The 
sheriff arranged his chiefs in a line opposite to us, about ten yards from 
our own party. who ali remained seated as before. A little way from the 
sheriff’s line the women and children grouped themselves about a huge 
tree-stump, which they hid in a cluster of glowing colours. 
It was now the duty of our chiefS to welcome their sympathizing 
guests. To my surprise, the person deputed to perform this duty was my 
blind friend, the younger John Gibson (Kanyadariyo). A fine musical 
voice, a good memory, and a pleasing presence, to which his lack of 
vision added a touch of the pathetic, qualified him well for the office. A 
friend led him by the arm, and with him walked gravely to and fro in 
the space between the hosts and the guests, while the blind singer, with 
figure upright and visage bent toward the ground before him, intoned in 
high, quavering notes the chant of welcome, in the precise words in which 
it is given in the Book of Rites. There were, of course, many pauses 
