76 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 190 



ing and in the afternoon. The food was plentiful. Sometimes in 

 the "singing feasts," the most magnificent of the feasts, as many as 

 30 or 40 kettles of food containing as many as 30 deer were eaten. At 

 one such feast there were 25 kettles in which there were 50 very 

 large fish and 120 smaller fish. At another, there were 30 kettles 

 containing 20 deer and 4 bears ( JR 10 : 1Y9-181) . 



A large number of people came to such feasts. For example, eight 

 or nine villages might be invited or even the entire country. The man 

 in charge of the feast sent to each village as many sticks as the num- 

 ber of people from that village who were invited (JR 10: 181). 



At the feast, there was also singing and dancing, during which 

 some knocked down their enemies, as if in sport. They usually 

 cried, hen^ lien or Meeee or vmiliii ( JR 10 : 181-183) .^° At these war 

 feasts and those to honor a victory, the young men, following the 

 example of the old men, one after the other held a tomahawk or 

 other weapon in his hand and fenced and fought from one end of the 

 place where the feast was being held to the other, as if they were actu- 

 ally fighting the enemy. And to show that they would not lack 

 courage while fighting the enemy, they chanted abuses, curses, and 

 threats against the enemy and promised themselves victory over them. 

 If the feast was one to rejoice in a victory, after they had chanted 

 praises for the chiefs who had killed the enemy, they sat down and 

 others took their place until the feast ended (S 113-114). 



The origin of this rite was ascribed to a certain giant. Wlien they 

 lived on the shore of the sea, one of the Huron wounded the giant 

 in the forehead because he had not replied hwai^ the usual response 

 to a greeting [cf. chay in Appendix 3]. In punishment for this, the 

 monster sowed the seeds of discord among them and, after recom- 

 mending to them the war feasts, the Ononharoia [see below, "Curing 

 Ceremonies"], and the response wiiiuii. disappeared into the earth 

 (JR10:183)." 



DANCING 



The Huron danced for one of four reasons : ( 1 ) to propitiate the 

 spirits who they thought conferred benefits on them, (2) to welcome 

 someone, (3) to rejoice for some victory, or (4) to prevent or cure 

 disease. When they were to dance either naked or covered by a 

 breechcloth, in accordance with the dream of a sick person or by 

 order of the medicine man or the chiefs, a summons was griven 



30 William N. Penton has pointed out to me that these are the usual responses to the 

 individual ad6nwe' chants (see note 46, p. 39). 



^ Iroquois ceremonials also have such myths to account for their origin, but it is not 

 clear what the corresponding Iroquois myth is, if any. The myth is in the Iroquois pattern. 



