Chafb] SENECA THANKSGIVING RITUALS 11 



This third group is not disparaged. It is referred to as "those with 

 no assigned responsibihty" only as "a way of speaking," and these 

 people are said to be as willing as the others to help with the cere- 

 monies. Specifically mentioned as belonging under this heading are 

 the warriors and the women. 



The children are still "taking their places on the earth," running 

 and crawling about. The earth is said to be strong because of them, 

 in reference to the Creator's particular sympathy for children (Parker, 

 1913, p. 33 fn.), which is believed to have kept him from ever being 

 willing to destroy the earth. 



The Four Rituals are said to have been left by the Creator to serve 

 as a means by which people are able to manifest their gratitude. 



In the last section the speaker states his own happiness at having 

 been able to express the gratitude of the people. He then turns his 

 attention to the singers, noting that the Creator gave different people 

 talents for learning different things. (It is not unusual for accom- 

 plished speakers to consider themselves bad singers, and vice versa.) 

 He thanks the singers for having cooperated with the Faith Keepers, 

 and encourages them to repeat their performance at a future cere- 

 mony. Finall}^, he leaves up to them the number of songs they will 

 sing in the final group. 



The Tobacco Invocation contains the same sequence as the Thanks- 

 giving Dance, without of course the section for the singers and with 

 the earth mentioned between the children and the plants, except that 

 the sequence is recited first in reverse order and then repeated in the 

 normal order. During the first sequence the burning of the tobacco 

 is accompanied by an expression of thanksgiving; during the second 

 sequence, by a request that the item will continue for another year. 

 In other respects there is Uttle difference in the spoken content of 

 the two rituals. The final sentences of the section dealing with the 

 wind as it occurs in both the first and second sequences of the Tobacco 

 Invocation are given on pages 140-141. 



No two performances of a ritual are identical. At any one stage 

 of history three classes of variations can be distinguished: (1) those 

 which appear in different performances by the same individual, (2) 

 those which appear in performances by different individuals of the 

 same community (or longhouse), and (3) those which appear in per- 

 formances of different communities. In addition there are modifica- 

 tions of a ritual associated with its occurrence in different ceremonies, 

 one example of this type being the varying position of the section 

 dealing with the Four Rituals in the Thanksgiving Dance. Historical 

 records also provide evidence of variations through time. A complete 

 study of Iroquois ritualism would have to take into account a number 



