NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS — FENTON 2/ 



mainly concerned with the enumeration of their own number. If 

 these were out of sequence by local standards, their wonderment does 

 not amaze me since Iroquois personal names are subject to varying 

 interpretation, and different versions gain acceptance in separated 

 localities and in succeeding periods. The Seneca chiefs of Tonawanda 

 do not exchange condolences with the Cayuga chiefs of Six Nations 

 Reserve in Canada, but rather with the Onondaga chiefs of Syracuse, 

 N. Y. Thus different variants of the ritual of condolence have de- 

 veloped on the American side and in Canada, and to some extent the 

 interpretations of the titles have been localized, and the order of roll 

 call near its end differs as certain pairs of titles are interpolated in 

 New York and Canada. 



The specimen was also submitted to Dr. Frank G. Speck, Professor 

 of Anthropology in the University of Pennsylvania, whose wide field 

 experience among eastern Indians includes a study of Cayuga cere- 

 monialism. Speck recognized the cane immediately as a tally of 

 names of Iroquois League chiefs, proportioned by number of repre- 

 sentatives for each of the Five Nations, and suggested that the writer 

 undertake its study. 



Accordingly, the Cranbrook Institute of Science invited me to 

 describe the specimen. Between wartime assignments, I took the 

 opportunity afforded by the Cranbrook Institute to visit the Six 

 Nations Reserve from September 15 to October 15, 1943, to make 

 inquiries about the cane and to investigate its history and use in 

 the Condolence Council. This search was coupled with the work of 

 translating texts of the rituals that were collected by my predecessor, 

 the late J. N. B. Hewitt, and by Alexander Goldenweiser for the 

 National Museum of Canada. Both of these ethnologists had worked 

 at the Six Nations Reserve with Chief John A. Gibson, father of 

 my interpreter Simeon, and Hewitt had retained Joshua Buck and 

 Chief Abram Charles. To advance the translation of these manu- 

 scripts relating to the Iroquois League, the American Council of 

 Learned Societies in 1941 had awarded me a grant-in-aid of research. 

 A renewal made in 1942 had not been used, but the Council made 

 it available for this study in the fall of 1943. Study of the Condolence 

 Council constituted the central problem of field work in the spring 

 and fall of 1945, supported by the Viking Fund of New York City, 

 and the present study is written with that background material in 

 mind (Fenton, 1946; and 62d and 63d Annual Reports of the Bureau 

 of American Ethnology). 



