22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, III 



1883 and observed leading the delegation of the younger nations to 

 the woods-edge fire at Onondaga. He had a suitable name for a 

 Hai Hai singer who carries the ritual on the road. "While we were 

 conversing, the sound of a measured chant was heard in the distance. 

 All eyes were turned on the neighboring woods, from which was 

 presently seen to issue the portly form of the Cayuga chief Wage 

 . . .," etc. — Howard Skye equated the two from Hale's description. 



While this gives us a base line for dating Billy Wage's perform- 

 ance of the role of Hai Hai singer, Hale did not mention a cane at 

 this point in the ceremony observed, but when they got inside the 

 Onondaga Longhouse, he noted that the Eulogy singer, the "elderly" 

 Cayuga Chief Jacob Silversmith (Teyotherehkonh, "Doubly Cold") 

 was ". . . bearing in his hand a staff, with which he seemed to time 

 his steady walk." (P. 54.) We are without further details. 



Our information states further thab the cane did not belong to 

 Andrew Spragg; "it belonged to the Cayugas. Ganawado made it 

 for the Cayugas only. According to John Smoke, when Andrew 

 Spragg got hold of the cane, he claimed it." 



Such is the history of the specimen. 



MATERIAL DESCRIPTION 



Shape and general appearance. — With its bent handle attached, the 

 Condolence cane bears a superficial resemblance to a dress sword 

 (pi. 2). This was how one of my informants described it to me. 

 The handle, at a second glance, might be mistaken for a discarded 

 umbrella handle that, as a substitute for some earlier handle, had 

 been attached from its side to the stick, like the hand guard of a 

 sword, instead of by its axis, like the handle of an umbrella. In all 

 probability, this is the original handle despite Yankee Spring's theory 

 that an eagle perched on the staff. Viewed sideways, the handle con- 

 forms to the shape of the bows or crooks on hickory canes by Iroquois 

 craftsmen. In fact, the handle could be reproduced by cutting the 

 crook from the shaft of an Iroquois old man's cane. The handle 

 appears to be made of white hickory. 



When the cane was accessioned at the Cranbrook Institute, the 

 handle was at first removed, since it was thought to be a later addition 

 or substitute for some earher handle. The handle has since been 

 restored. Three informants who saw the profile drawing of the stick 

 without the handle asserted that it was once provided with a handle 

 like a sword guard. All these informants had seen the stick used 

 in the ceremony at Six Nations Reserve but none mentioned that 

 the handle was formerly an eagle head, as Yankee Spring had said. 



