72 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 190 



spent their time feasting, dancing, and playing games (cf. C 129, 137, 

 164; S 98).^^ The Indians were so occupied that they had no time 

 for the priests. 



RELIGION 22 



FEASTS ==* 



In general, Huron feasts for one's friends and the leading men of 

 the village [sometimes the number of guests totaled as many as 200 to 

 400 (JR 23: 161) or 500 (C 164) people] were to announce a great 

 joy or great sorrow (JR 23: 161). A feast giver was an honored 

 man ; one of the most respected men in the country was so, the Huron 

 said, "because he was a peaceable man, who did no harm to anyone 

 and who greatly delighted in merrymaking and in giving feasts" 

 (JR 17:153). 



At these feasts, there was an abundance of good food (JR 17 : 163). 

 Strangers were given the best of what had been prepared (JR 8: 

 127). The whole head of the animal that provided the feast was 

 always given as a present to the head chief or to some other brave 



'"■ Finley (1840 : 49) says that there were many feasts among the Wyandot if the harvest 

 was good and game plentiful. The winter is still the time of great Iroquois ritual activity. 

 Not only Is the longest and most complex ceremonial, Midwinter (New Year's) held in the 

 winter, but also there are almost nightly winter meetings of the medicine societies in private 

 houses (Fenton 1953 : 76). These meetings are to effect new cures and to renew old ones, 

 for the ritual that effected the initial cure ought to be repeated every year or so in order 

 to maintain health (see Fenton 1953 : passim ; Shimony 1961 a : passim). Several factors 

 probably contribute to this great ritual activity concerned with individual health and wel- 

 fare in the winter : leisure time, with some attendant boredom and anxiety, and perhaps 

 also an increase in the actual incidence of illness in the winter months. 



^ The 17th-century French descriptions of Huron religion emphasize the ceremonies given 

 by an individual in order to cure his illness or, in general, to obtain good fortune in his 

 endeavors or to prevent illness or other ill fortune and virtually ignore the communal 

 calendric ceremonials. In the 19th- and 20th-century descriptions of Iroquois religion, the 

 emphasis is exactly reversed : the rituals concerned with individual crises have been most 

 often ignored and the calendric ceremonials described at length. Although this change 

 probably reflects some actual change in Iroquoian religion, it should not be taken to mean 

 that Iroquoian religion has been completely transformed. Rather, it seems likely that both 

 types of ceremonials existed among the Iroquoians of the 17th century, as both types exist 

 among the Iroquois today. The early observers of the Huron probably neglected the com- 

 munal calendric rituals — they are not as striking, or as "colorful," as the individual crises 

 rites. That the religious tradition concerned with individual crises is still a strong one is 

 evidenced in such publications as those of Fenton (1953), Shimony (1961 a ; 1961 b), and 

 Speck (1949). 



Part of this shift in religious emphasis is probably also the result of the teachings of 

 Handsome Lake, the Seneca prophet who successfully introduced his "New Religion" to the 

 Iroquois at the beginning of the 19th century. This religion is a compound of old Iroquois 

 and Christian religions with some unique elements added. It quickly supplanted the older 

 form of Iroquois religion. Although Handsome Lake condemned the medicine societies, one 

 of the mainstays of the individual crises rites, his attempt was not successful and they still 

 flourish. Handsome Lake did confirm the "Four Sacred Ceremonies" (Feather Dance, 

 Thanksgiving Dance, Ad6nwe', and Bowl Game), rituals of the calendric ceremonials, and 

 at least some of the ceremonials themselves. This explicit approval may have contributed 

 to the emphasis of these rituals in present Iroquois religion. 



23 Although the French called these events "feasts," the word should not be construed to 

 mean secular affairs. On the contrary, the feast probably marked the occasion as being 

 one of religious import. Today, feasting is important in the medicinal complex (Shimony 

 1961 a: 276), as well as in the communal calendric ceremonials. 



