FIELD STUDIES AMONG THE IROQUOIS TRIBES 



By J. N. B. HEWITT 

 Ethnologist, Bureau of American Ethnology 



In May, 1931, the writer left Washington to resume his field 

 studies among the Iroquois tribes dwelling in Ontario, Canada, and 

 in the State of New York. 



As early as 1898 the writer had begun to record lengthy traditions 

 in the native dialects of the several Iroquois tribes relating to the 

 founding of the League of the Five Iroquois Tribes, and giving 

 important biographical data concerning the personalities of the leading 

 founders of the League. 



In the main, these several traditions were consistent one with an- 

 other, but naturally there were wide and basic variations ; and these 

 divergencies are so fundamental, in many instances, that it was im- 

 perative to find, if possible, by revisions and constructive interpre- 

 tations, a consistent historical background to the events leading to 

 the founding and establishment of the League of the Five Iroquois 

 Tribes. 



To have published these traditions as first related and recorded by 

 the native annalists would have led to utter confusion in any en- 

 deavor to understand the purpose and structure of the League. An 

 example of this may be found in the fact that in published lists of 

 the number of Federal Chiefs of the League the figure is usually set 

 at 50, although the correct number is 49; this error was due to a 

 gross misunderstanding of a passage in the Ritual of the Eulogy of 

 the Founders by the late Chief Thomas Webster, who for years was 

 the Wampum-keeper of the New York Onondaga. Unwittingly, he 

 mistook the office of Chief Warrior for that of a Federal Chief. 

 Owing to his official position Webster's error was gradually adopted 

 by the best annalists. It required the facts recounted in the legend 

 of the transfer of the Deer Clan from the Cayuga to the Onondaga 

 tribe, to correct Webster's unaccountable blunder. 



In revising and retyping the variant native texts in the Onondaga, 

 the Mohawk, and the Cayuga, concerning the birth and life-work of 

 the prophet-statesman Deganawida, difficult problems of coordination 

 and exegesis are brought out. 



The uniform version of the several extant traditions is that his 

 birth was parthenogenetic, it being asserted that his mother was a 



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