SENECA THANKSGIVING RITUALS 



By Wallace L. Chafe 



INTRODUCTION 



Presented in this work are two ceremonial texts in the Seneca 

 language with translations and grammatical commentary. Tran- 

 scriptions of songs that are performed in conjunction with one of the 

 texts are also given. The title of a work is rarely an adequate de- 

 scription of its contents, and all three words of the present title call 

 for elaboration here. 



The word 'Seneca' is at once too narrow and too broad. The long- 

 house or Handsome Lake religion which these texts represent is fol- 

 lowed by Seneca and other Iroquois groups on half a dozen reserva- 

 tions in New York State and Ontario, so that general Iroquois 

 ceremonialism is reflected here to a large degree. On the other hand, 

 local differentiation has been recognized as a phenomenon of peculiar 

 interest to students of contemporary Iroquois culture (Fen ton, 1951, 

 pp. 3 ff.), and from that point of view it is significant that the texts 

 are from the Tonawanda Reservation Seneca, the principal source of 

 Lewis Henry Morgan's material, whose present-day ceremonies are 

 outhned in Fenton (1941). 



The word 'thanksgiving' seems no worse a choice than any other 

 and has been used by most previous writers. When confronted with 

 the Seneca words involved, some speakers balk at any attempt to 

 give an English equivalent. Others translate, to some extent accord- 

 ing to context, as 'thank, be thankful or grateful to or for, rejoice in, 

 bless, greet'. The trouble is that the Seneca concept is broader than 

 that expressed by any simple English term, and covers not only the 

 conventionalized amenities of both thanking and greeting, but also a 

 more general feeling of happiness over the existence of something or 

 someone. One result is that the English distinction between 'give 

 thanks to' and 'give thanks for' has no relevance. 



Finally, the word 'ritual' is used here as a technical term to mean 

 'component of a ceremony'. If a Seneca ceremony is delimited as 

 any formal gathering that includes activities aimed at communication 

 with the supernatural, any ceremony can be said to consist of several 



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