Chafe] SENECA THANKSGIVING RITUALS 133 



19. Handsome Lake 



(585) And now those of us who have gathered (586) are expressing 

 our gratitude for the works of the Creator. (587) And indeed he 

 was among us people who moved about. (588) Illness took hold of 

 liim. (589) For a number of years he was confined to bed, lying 

 helpless. (590) And the way things were, he thought that there 

 must be someone there (591) who made it the way it was when he 

 was moving about, (592) and the way his health was then. (593) 

 And the way things were he was looking about on the earth. (594) 

 And then indeed he prayed, (595) and repented. (596) And then, 

 the way things were in the mind of the Creator, (597) he saw well 

 indeed how the people he had left to move about were acting. (598) 

 It seemed that nowhere was there any longer any guidance for their 

 minds. (599) It was simply not as it should be. (600) And then 

 he thought, "It might be better for me to tell them through him, 

 the people whom I left, (601) through this man who is concentrating 

 on me every day and every night." (602) And then he sent his 

 helpers, the Four Beings. (603) They spoke to him, our great one, 

 whom we used to call Handsome Lake. (604) And he began at 

 Cornplanter. He told about the things that they had told him. 

 (605) We shall continue to do it that way in the future. (606) And 

 indeed he traveled on, coming this way. (607) Indeed we Imow that 

 he was from here.^^ (608) And indeed we believe that he performed 



•» Handsome Lake's mother Is said to have been a Tonawanda woman, and to have been burled near 

 the present longhouse. 



