44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



of corn for the Six Songs, and one for each of the 50 chiefs. Of his 

 early education in the ceremony, Howard said : 



It is a strange thing, but when I was a small boy, I could name all of the 

 50 chiefs in the League. An old man came and stayed at our house one winter. 

 He drew a set of pictures like those of Abram Charles [Hewitt and Fenton, 

 1945] and taught me from them. I learned all of the roll call. When I was 

 about 12, I left the Reserve, my father having died, and I went out among the 

 whites to work, staying until about 1930, when I came home some 15 years ago. 



How the Iroquois learn a ceremony was brought home to me when 

 I attended a rehearsal at the Onondaga Longhouse with Howard Skye 

 on the afternoon of November 18, 1945. It was strictly a men's affair, 

 only chiefs and warriors being present, and the atmosphere was in- 

 formal but restrained. Opposite the single door, two parallel benches 

 had been placed where the chiefs hold council at the men's fire. 

 Onondaga Chief Joseph Logan ( Dehadoda' • ho' ) was in charge. He 

 opened the meeting with the regular prayer of thanksgiving, and 

 announced why they were met. At the far end of the bench nearest 

 him he laid out the 15 strings of Requickening wampums, from left 

 to right, starting with the first three, then a space and the rest, in 

 order toward the women's fire, so that the fifteenth string lay across 

 the end of the bench and the first about 18 inches away. He merely 

 named the strings as he put them down, and discussed them with his 

 colleague David Thomas who later made the Requickening Address 

 in the ceremony. During most of the rehearsal "Dawit" concentrated 

 on the strings, apparently going over the "words" in his mind. 



The order of ceremony is always reversed in rehearsal, according 

 to Howard Skye, which bothered me as I had thought that Requicken- 

 ing came last. Secondly, they alternate singers by condolences ; David 

 Thomas having sung the previous fall, the role this time fell to Roy 

 Buck, a relatively young man in his thirties. In this way the roles 

 are shifted among individuals and a knowledge of the ceremony is 

 shared and preserved. 



Chief Logan having laid out the wampum strings, Roy Buck put 

 down the corn. Starting near the end of the bench by the first 

 wampum string and proceeding in the opposite direction, right to left, 

 he first laid out 6 kernels for the Six Songs. Then toward the 

 midline of the bench, 8 kernels in 4 lateral pairs for the Seneca chiefs ; 

 then over the midline and to the left, 10 kernels for the Cayugas, a 

 lateral pair of doorkeepers, a line of 2 groups of 3, and another 

 lateral pair for the firekeepers. One of the latter kernels, I was told, 

 which represented the vacancy to be filled at the installation, should 

 have been placed to one side, but Roy Buck as a learner neglected this 



