NO. 17 SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I916 122 
Mohawk, Onondaga, and Cayuga, and as far as practicable interlinear 
and free translations and expository interpretations in English were 
also obtained for these texts. This material is being prepared for 
his projected memoir on the League of the Iroquois or Five Nations. 
The subject-matter is complex and difficult to understand. It deals 
with the laws and ordinances, the rituals, the addresses, the chants, 
the songs, and the traditions of origin, of the League as an institu- 
tion, which still exists best among the Six Nations of Iroquois in 
Canada. The very technical and highly figurative diction of the 
native material is not in most cases understood by the ordinary 
native speaker, and so it is necessary to test the knowledge of an 
informant or interpreter before accepting his or her services; even 
such information must be revised and compared with other sources 
of information. This is not at all strange, because the native life 
is being gradually displaced by the culture of European peoples. 
laws, ordi- 
These texts embrace a very wide range of subjects 
nances, decisions as to the meaning or applications of laws, rituals, 
ceremonies, and constitutional principles—often stated in technical 
and highly metaphorical terms derived from mythic and legendary 
sources. The tradition of the parthenogenetic conception and birth 
of Dekanawida and of his work in establishing the League of the 
Five Nations diverges into several versions which have adopted 
striking, though often contradictory, incidents from the legendary 
and mythic lore of the people. The most noteworthy of these incor- 
porations is the Saga of the Wrath of Hiawatha. So, to obtain a 
fair understanding of the entire subject it becomes imperatively 
needful to collect these varying versions, no matter how fragmentary 
they now may be, for the purpose of providing means for disen- 
tangling the probable historical nucleus of the original saga from 
these variant stories. It must be kept constantly in mind that no 
small proportion of these ancient laws and ordinances—now largely 
in abeyance—are recoverable only from the language of the chants 
and songs and addresses of the Condoling and Installation Council. 
Thus the work of recording these native texts dealing with the 
most highly developed and complexly organized activities of these 
tribes is most tedious and irksome, and one of some difficulty, because 
of the highly-wrought diction of these narratives and rituals and 
because the native annalists of these tribes, whose knowledge of the 
history and wisdom of their past was unmodified by European 
culture, are no more, and also because their sons and daughters of 
to-day have become interested largely in other things, and so they 
have forgotten, if they ever had learned, the lore and the wisdom 
