12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



his Canadian visit Yankee lived a winter in the home of Andrew 

 Spragg, a member of the Lower Cayuga band on the Six Nations 

 Reserve. During the long winter nights, Andrew, who was by then 

 a famed Cayuga ritualist, coached the Seneca student on matters re- 

 lating to the League : its beginning, how chiefs were apportioned by 

 tribes, ranking and position of the Five Nations in council, the order 

 of business, and how the founders proceeded to make laws. While 

 instructing his student Spragg made continual reference to a cane, 

 which Yankee remembered and described to me in detail during in- 

 terviews in 1934. Among other things, Yankee recalled vividly the 

 spacing of the Five Nations on the cane, from Mohawks at its head 

 to Senecas at its tip, segregation of the chiefs by classes, and the use 

 of pegs to denominate individual titles. Yankee asserted, however, 

 that the cane was surmounted by an eagle carved of wood, which 

 symbolized the totemite of the Five Nations, and served as a handle 

 for the singer who carried it when reciting the roll call of chiefs in 

 the ritual of Condolence. 



A year elapsed. We spent a day, August 3, 1935, at the Six Nations 

 Reserve searching for the cane. Andrew Spragg was dead, and the 

 Condolence cane which Yankee Spring had seen in his possession, we 

 were told, was in the custody of Chief John Davey (Onondaga), fire- 

 keeper of the Six Nations council. Cayuga Chief Jim Crawford, since 

 deceased, promised to write when the cane could be seen. Neither 

 Yankee Spring nor I ever heard from him. Spragg's son had moved 

 to the city. Chief Davey was not at home, and none of the chiefs 

 whom we interviewed could affirm that he had seen the cane since 

 Spragg had gone the long trail. 



Andrew Spragg spent his life with the Lower Cayuga band of 

 the Six Nations of Grand River. We do not know when he was born. 

 According to the records of the Six Nations Indian Office in Brant- 

 ford, Canada, Andrew Spragge, as his name appears on the roll of the 

 Lower Cayuga band, was aged 38 in 1902 (therefore born 1864) ; 

 and the same entry is marked "D 1921," but the year 1921 is crossed 

 out (Census Record of Lower Cayuga Tribe, p. 164, from "Old 

 Book," p. 337). Andrew Spragge is credited with a son, "A. Averson 

 Spraggie, B. 1888/D. 1937." The latter is Patterson Spragge, whose 

 son Raymond was born June 23, 1937, presumably to his wife, Louisa 

 Williams. The so-called Old Book (p. 337) contains a contradictory 

 entry, as follows: 



1893 Andrew Sprag 26 (B. 1867) 



Betsy 17 (His wife, p. 177) 



Martha 



Averson 1894. 



