478 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
say thou to it ‘Peace be to thee, O Kahina Root.’”’ Then follow 
prayers to be said and after three days it is to be pulled in a certain 
manner. ‘‘And when thou hast pulled it up bring a thin plate of gold 
or silver and bury it in the place where the root was and cover it over.” 
Through what vast ages of time has. this custom travelled,— 
connecting in one origin the culture of the Iroquois and some allied 
culture which had a branch in early Syria. Some of the questions 
arising are: How wide is the entire spread of the custom? What 
space of time is involved in that general spread? And if the Iroquois 
stock were somewhere in northern Mexico about say 500 B.C., how long 
before did their ancestors (or those from whom they derived their 
custom) cross the Pacific Ocean and arrive from Eastern Asia ? 
Did they come by the Black Current past Hawaii or—much more 
probably—by the Aleutians from Japan or Siberia? In either case 
how old was then that form of culture in Asia from which their ancestors 
derived this custom? Certainly it was there long before Chinese 
history began or the rudiments of Chinese civilization drifted over the 
mountains from Mesopotamia. The antiquity of the Iroquoian 
deposit of culture leads us back through immense vistas. Patient 
endeavor and speculation on facts like these might build up one phase of 
“prehistoric history’? having considerable value and analogous to 
“seological history’’ from comparisons and stratifications. 
A second illustration likewise is so striking that it can be easily 
followed in its spread. In Sir George Grey’s “‘Polynesian Mythology” 
he relates a traditional story carefully handed down by the Maoris 
from the days—perhaps a thousand years ago-—when their ancestors 
lived in that unknown island home ‘‘Hawaiki” (thought to be Savaii 
of the Samoan group two thousand miles distant), before the migration 
in the ‘‘six war canoes”’ to New Zealand—that the hero Whakaturia, 
being captured, was hung up in the roof of Uenuku’s great house so 
that he might die by being stifled with the smoke; and they sang and 
danced beneath him, “but their dancing and singing were shockingly 
bad.” Then his brother Tama climbed up to him in the night and 
said ‘‘Would it not be a good thing for you to say to them: I never 
knew anything so bad as the dancing and singing of those people.” 
He did so, and Uenuku’s people, curious to see better dancing, took 
him down, and he prepared himself for the dance with great ceremony, 
demanding a bright fire and flourishing his sword, and dancing down 
one side of the house and up the other. ‘Then Whakaturia as is the 
custom in the dance, turned round on his right hand, stuck out his tongue, 
and made hideous faces on that side; again, he turned round on the left 
hand and made hideous faces on that side; his eyes glared and his sword 
and his red apron looked splendid.” 
