OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. XXXI 



The subject matter of all these records is genuinely and exclu- 

 sively Iroquoian. 



The Mohawk manuscript was copied about the year 1830 

 by Chief John ''Smoke" Johnson from an earlier original or 

 perhaps copy. The orthography of this copy is quite regular 

 and is that of the early English missionaries, being similar in 

 many respects to the well known Pickering alphabet. 



One of the Onondaga manuscripts was found in the posses- 

 sion of Mr. Daniel La Fort and the other in that of Mrs. John 

 A. Jones, both of the Onondaga reserve, New York. These 

 two copies differ from each other in orthography and substance, 

 the Jones manuscript being probably a full detail of a part of 

 the other. 



The orthography of the La Fort manuscript is very irregu- 

 lar and difficult to read, but that of the Jones manuscript is 

 regular and legible. The Mohawk manuscript contains a de- 

 tailed account of the rites and ceremonies, speeches and songs, 

 of the condoling and inducting council of the Iroquoian League 

 in the form in which that council was conducted by the elder 

 brothers or members of the Onondaga, Mohawk, and Seneca 

 divisions, which have been generally called tribes, but are 

 more correctly confederacies, their villages being the tribal 

 unit. The La Fort Onondaga manuscrii^t comprises a similar 

 ritual of the same council as carried out by the younger 

 brothers, viz, the Cayuga, Oneida, and Tuscarora members or 

 confederacies of the league. The Jones Onondaga manuscript 

 is the charge of the principal shaman to the newly elected or 

 inducted chief or chiefs. 



During the remainder of the year material was collected and 

 work continued on the Tuscarora-English part of the Tusca- 

 rora dictionary. 



WORK OF MR. H. W. HENSHAW. 



Mr. H. W. Henshaw visited southern California for the pur- 

 pose of pursuing linguistic studies in the group of languages 

 spoken by the Santa Barbara Indians. Altliough these In- 

 dians became known at a very early day, being mentioned 

 with particularity in the relation of Cabrillo's voyage along 



