NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS — FENTON 21 



Until my spring field trip of 1945," only Andrew Spragg had 

 been identified with the cane. No one could say who had made and 

 inscribed the cane, only that it had been among the Lower Cayuga 

 band for a long time. Andrew Spragg was the last singer seen to 

 carry it "on the road" to install chiefs at Onondaga. The hereditary 

 chiefs had been under attack by the Indian Department, and we are 

 reminded that in the Indian Act of 1924 Canada abolished the con- 

 federate council on the Grand River. It was during this time of 

 trouble that Spragg was growing old, and since the old way was 

 failing, he let the cane go. 



But despite the Indian Act, the system of life chiefs goes on, albeit 

 unofiicially, to provide the leadership for the longhouse communities 

 on the Six Nations Reserve. In order that the men to whom the 

 people now look in confidence might benefit from knowing how their 

 predecessors remembered the roll call of the founders of the League 

 the writer carried an enlarged line drawing of both sides of the 

 cane to show to informants. The present ritual holders desired so 

 many copies that the Cranbrook Institute had the original drawings 

 blueprinted. Two of my Iroquois friends have since reproduced the 

 original. 



According to John Smoke (Cayuga), an old man of the Lower 

 Cayuga band whom Howard Skye (Cayuga) consults on League 

 matters, and who is known by the Indian name T'awene'n'drg', or 

 properly, T'awe'ne's, "Word sinking in deep snow, or mud," the cane 

 of Andrew Spragg was made by Ganawado, "Lime floating" (from 

 onawada, "lime"-, and -o, "floating on water"- as in a lime pit). 

 Ganawado had the English name of Styres and was the grandfather 

 of Edward Styres, a Cayuga man of between 30 and 40 years in 

 this generation ; the latter's father, Joe Styres, died at about 65 years 

 in 1939 or 1940. Ganawado was father of Joe, who was born about 

 1880. 



From Ganawado, the maker, the cane passed to Billy Wage, an 

 Onondaga who lived among the Cayuga. From Billy Wage it went 

 to A. Spragg. No one knew what became of it after that. 



Ganawado was a Hai Hai singer and used the cane in the Con- 

 dolence ceremony. 



Billy Wage was also a Hai Hai singer. He is the same ". . . 

 Cayuga chief Wage (Hadwennine, 'His words are moving'), the high 

 constable of the Reserve who is commonly known as Sheriff Wage 

 . . .," of whom Hale (1895, p. 51) wrote in his journal of July 



13 62d Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 3-4, 1946. 



