Tooker] 



ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HURON '81 



cassisted them in time of need. It was this ohi, the Sky, who was 

 evoked in an oath when some promise of hnportance or some bargain 

 or peace treaty with the enemy was made. The oath was hakhrihote 

 ekaronhiate tout icwakhier ekentate^ 'The Sky knows what we are 

 doing today.' If they broke their word or their alliance, they be- 

 lieved that the Sky would punish them. The Indians also thought 

 that it was not right to mock the Sky ( JR 10 : 161 ; cf . JR 33 : 225) .^^ 

 Tobacco frequently was used in ritual contexts and offered to the 

 spirits with a prayer (S 171). In addition to those occasions men- 

 tioned above and below, it was thrown into the water of a great lake 

 in order to calm it and to appease a spirit {lannaoa) who, in despair, 

 once cast himself into a lake and who caused these storms ( JR 26 : 

 309-311).*^ Before going to sleep, a man might throw some tobacco 

 on the fire and pray to the spirits to take care of his house ( JR 13 : 

 263) . It was offered to some rocks that the Huron passed when going 

 to Quebec to trade. One of these was called hihihouray, 'a rock 

 where the Owl makes its nest.' The most famous was named tsanhohi 

 arasta, 'the home of tsanhohi,'' a species of a bird of prey. This rock 

 was a man who had been changed into stone; the Indians saw the 

 shape of the head, arms, and body in this rock, one so high that 

 arrows could not reach it. In it was a depression in which lived a 

 spirit capable of making their journey successful. Therefore, they 

 stopped and put tobacco into one of the clefts saying, oM ca ichikhon 

 condayee aenwaen ondayee d^aonstaancwas, etc., 'spirit who dwellest 



*2 Some would interpret the deity, the Sky, as being the elder of the Twin Brothers 

 (see Appendix 2). 



It is also possible that the Sky is a being quite distinct from the Elder Twin Brother. 

 It is possible, for example, that Haweniyu, "Great Spirit" or "Controller," which Handsome 

 Lake called the Creator (Speck 1949: 29), has been substituted for the older "Sky" in 

 Iroquoian religion by Handsome Lake : in present Iroquois cosmology, the Creator occu- 

 pies the place of the Sky in the early accounts. If it did occur, the substitution probably 

 would have been easy : the Iroquois think that the creatures of the world, both 

 natural and supernatural, are arranged in a hierarchy that is also spatial, the most 

 important being those who are highest (farther from the ground). This order is well 

 known to the Iroquois, for it is the basis of the Thanksgiving Address, which is fre- 

 quently given in present Iroquois ritual. (The most complete account of this speech 

 is contained in Chafe 1961 b. A list of other versions is also contained in this volume, 

 ibid. : 301-302, to which may be added the more recently published summary version in 

 Shimony 1961 a: 133-140.) If this general arrangement of beings is pre-Handsome 

 Lake (which is entirely possible) and if there was no conception of the Creator then, 

 the highest being logically would be the Sky. A substitution of the Creator for the Sky 

 would, of course, be consistent with Christian thought : the Christian Creator, God, lives 

 in heaven, the Sky. 



The winds in present Iroquois thought are controlled by the Four Beings ("Four 

 Angels"), messengers to Handsome Lake (Chafe 1961 b: 9; Shimony 1961 a: 138; Speck 

 1949 : 30), although wind may also figure as a spirit in his own right (see Chafe 1961 a : 

 8; Morgan 1901(1) : 151-152). It is, however, a short step from control of winds by 

 the Sky to control of winds by the Creator or his messengers. 



*' A similar Wyandot belief is that some of the great serpents were never killed and 

 still live in the bottom of the Great Lakes. These beings sometimes cause such turbulence 

 of the waters that they can be calmed only by throwing some offering into the lake 

 (Connelley 1899 b: 86-87). The Iroquois have similar mythical serpents (Curtin and 

 Hewitt 1918: 797 n. 135). 



