NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS — FENTON 3 1 



came in with the jacknife. So John Echo, an Onondaga of Six 

 Nations Reserve, told F. W. Waugh in 1912. Canes were formerly 

 made of a wood called dnsishaa' ; shafts were cut, dried a little, and 

 bent. Bent-wood canes became a ready source of cash income in the 

 decades preceding and following 1900. Waugh describes a form for 

 bending round-handled canes which he saw at William Poudry's at 

 Tonawanda Reservation. N. Y,, during the same year. After the 

 manner of logs for scraping and working skins, one end rested on 

 the ground, the high end on two or three legs. The high end was 

 flattened around a vertical cylinder which was mortised into the log, 

 and a vertical pin placed next to it made a vise and shaping block 

 for bending canes, lacrosse sticks, and snowshoe frames. The Iroquois 

 bend hickory when it is green, and John Echo averred that steaming 

 was not an old method of wood bending among the Iroquois. Sticks 

 for snowshoes and so on were generally used round, after drying 

 just a little, and then roasted or warmed up beside the fire, which 

 was sufficient for bending (Waugh, 1912, Note Book B (Ms.), p. 2'j'). 



In the collections of the National Museum of Canada are four 

 so-called Chief's canes, which Waugh collected at Six Nations Re- 

 serve in 191 5. Waugh got two of these from Cayuga Chief David 

 Jack, his principal informant on material culture; he purchased the 

 third from George Davis (Onondaga), and the fourth came from 

 his interpreter, John Jamieson, Jr. (Cayuga) who found it along the 

 road. (PI. 3, left to right.) The first is a plain, curved-headed cane 

 of hickory which belonged to David Jack's grandmother's husband 

 (Cat. No. III. I. 1035) ; modern canes of this type have the bark 

 stripped from the wood. David Jack gave for cane: da'ditra'^'na' 

 (Cayuga) ; da'ditsha (Onondaga). 



The second specimen has its handle carved to represent some water- 

 fowl and the shaft is scored in intersecting lateral diamond grids; 

 it belonged to David Jack's grandfather, who was also a chief, and 

 it is said to have passed through the hands of four generations 

 covering possibly a century, which is roughly the span that the Six 

 Nations have occupied the Grand River. (Waugh, 191 2, Notebook 

 No. 4, front cover (Ms.), and Accession Records, National Museum 

 of Canada, Cat. No. III. I. 1034-) 



The third specimen is ascribed to the ceremony of installing new 

 chiefs and therefore belongs to this discussion. It was a natural, 

 unworked stick with a knot at the head which was carved readily 

 into the effigy of a bear or wolf, and may have suggested its purpose 

 to the maker, although Waugh (191 5, Notebook No. 7, back cover 

 (Ms.)) says that neither corresponds to George Davis' clan which 



