iiEwiTTl MYTHS 467 



" You desire the human bemgs you are about to make to be too happy 

 and too well provided with necessaries." Notwithstanding the op- 

 position of his brother and his grandmother to his work for the welfare 

 of human beings, he in large measure thwarted all their schemes. 

 Finally the grandmother, who had exhausted all her methods of 

 opposition, challenged her grandson, De'hae°'hiyawa"kho"', to a 

 game of the bowl and plum pits, the prize of the winner to be the 

 rulership of the phenomena, processes, and the flora and fauna of 

 the earth. The grandson willingly accepted the challenge. In accord- 

 ance with custom, 10 days were allowed the contestants to prepare 

 for the struggle of their powerful orendas.^ At the end of this time 

 the grandmother came to the lodge of her grandson, bringing her 

 bowl and plum pits. He said he would use her bowl, but not her 

 plum pits, as these were something alive and under the control of 

 the mind of the grandmother, or the user. The plum pits in this 

 game serve as dice. The dice of De'hae'"hiyawa"kho'" were the 

 tops of the heads of chickadees, who had responded to his call for 

 aid. He took six of the tops of the heads, and they remained magi- 

 cally alive. When he and his grandmother were ready De'hae"'- 

 hiyawa"kho°' called in a loud voice, "All you whose bodies I have 

 formed, do you now put forth to the uttermost your orenda, in order 

 that we may conquer in this struggle, so that you may live!" Then, 

 when it came his turn to shake the bowl, he exclaimed, "Now, verily, 

 shall appear the good or ill fortune of all the things that I have 

 done or made!" But the grandmother failed to score, while De'hae- 

 °'hiyawa"kho°' made the highest score possible at one shake of the 

 bowl, and so won the government and rulership of all living things. 



Finally this great bet between De'hae"'hiyawa"kho°' and his 

 redoubtable grandmother is dramatized and played at the annual 

 New Year festival and also at the annual harvest festival or in- 

 gathering of crops. The two coordinate sides of tribal organiza- 

 tion play against each other. At this great bet one of the sides, 

 occupying the east side of the gaming mat, represents the side of 

 the Master of Life, De'hae°'hiyawa"hko°'. But the two sides alter- 

 nate in taking this eastern position. The late chief priest, Henry 

 Stevens, of the Seneca Cattaraugas Reservation in New York, being 

 asked whether it was more lucky to occupy the eastern side or not, 

 replied, "I was on that side last year and we got beat bad." 



De'hae°'hiyawa"kho'" was an imaginary man-being of the cos- 

 mogonic philosophy of the Iroquoian and other American myth- 

 ologies. He was, in brief, the symbolic embodiment or personifica- 

 tion of all earthly life, floral and faunal. The wise men of the elder 

 time attributed to him the formation or creation and conservation 

 of life and the living things in normal and beneficent bodies and 



See note on p. 608. 



