32 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, III 



was deer. Attached to the cane is a single string of wampum : "The 

 number of beads is said to have signified the number of chiefs, the 

 white beads indicating the leading chiefs, the blue the Pine Tree 

 chiefs. . . . The cane is said to have been used for many generations 

 for the purpose described" (Collectors Notes, Accession Records, 

 National Museum of Canada, Cat. No. III. I. 1068 a & b). This 

 datum to the contrary, as we shall see, neither the number of beads 

 nor the pattern of their arrangement agrees with the grouping of 

 chiefs by tribes in the Iroquois Confederacy. There are 10 white 

 beads, which is precisely the number of Cayuga federal chiefs, but 

 we are unable to account by this reckoning for the rest (the number 

 of blue beads) as Pine Tree chiefs. Assuming that the 10 white beads 

 stand for leading chiefs of committees in the Council of the League 

 we get nowhere because "Pine Tree" chiefs did not belong to the 

 League Council. 



As we read them, the total number of beads is 38: 10 white and 

 28 blue. Starting at the top of the loop and proceeding counter- 

 clockwise, the arrangement is : 6b, iw, 2b, iw, ib, iw, 2b, iw, 2b, iw, 

 2b, iw, 4b, iw, 2b, iw, 2b, iw, 2b, IW, 3b. Grouping these in pairs, 

 the following rhythmic patterns emerge : 



6-(l), 2-(l), i-(i), 

 2-(l), 2-(l), 2-(l), 



4-(i). 



2-(l), 2-(l), 2-(l), 



3-(o). 



Whichever way it is read, a similar pattern comes out. But taking 

 it as it stands above, the second and fourth lines of repeated units of 

 3 could refer to the three committees of each of the Mohawk and 

 Oneida committees of chiefs in the Bear, Wolf, and Turtle clans, 

 of which the bracketed figure, standing for the white bead, would 

 be the leading chief. The rest of the combinations do not work out 

 since the total number of beads does not correspond to the roster 

 of federal chiefs, which is 49 or 50. If the string were intended to 

 symbolize the federal chiefs in either tribal phratry, the number is 

 wrong, since the chiefs of the Three Brothers side (Mohawk, Onon- 

 daga, Seneca) comprise 31 titles, arranged 3-3-3, 6-1-2-3-2, 2-2-2-2; 

 and the chiefs of the Younger Nations or Four Brothers side (being 

 only Oneida and Cayuga in Five Nations) are 19 titles, arranged 

 3-3-3, and 2-3-3-2. 



The fourth cane (Cat. No. III. I. 1037) is one of those freaks of 

 nature, a spiral produced by climbing bittersweet, that the Iroquois 



