608 IROQUOIAN COSMOLOGY [eth. ann. 43 



Now at that time the entire assembly of people, the Ancient Ones, 

 and also the children all stood up, and all also held their arms upward. 

 Now at that time the entire assembly of people, too, shouted; thrice 

 did they repeat it. Then they sat down again, and now he said, 

 "Now the whole matter is finished." 



Now at that time they again dispersed, and they again recrossed the 

 river. At that time Ho'nigo'"heowa'ne°', i. e., His-Mind-is-Great, 

 said, "Thus it shall continue to be in the future, that there shall 

 always be tribes of people on either side of the river." 



NOTES TO IBOQUOIAN COSMOLOGY 



Note 1.— Chief John Arthur Gibson believed firmly in the great Creative Beings of the myths of IroQuoian 

 Cosmology. Of these, one was the Creator of human life and the life of all good beings and animals, who is 

 sometimes called the Master of Life or the Maker of Life. 



Note 2. — Since this was written the Canadian Government abrogated the old League Government by 

 chiefs on the Grand River Grant, Ontario. Canada, in the autumn of 1924, substituting therefor an elective 

 council, each member of which is elected by the suffrages of the adult male residents of the district in which 

 the candidate may live. 



Note 3.— Orenda. The Iroquois name of the Active force, principle, or magic power which was assumed 

 by the inchoate reasoning of primitive man to be inherent in every body and being of nature and in every 

 personified attribute, property, or activity, belonging to each of these and conceived to be the active cause 

 or force, or d>Tiamic energy, involved in every operation or phenomenon of nature, in any manner alTecting 

 or controlling the welfare of man. This hypothetic principle was conceived to be immaterial, occult, 

 impersonal, mysterious in mode of action, limited in function and efficiency, and not at all omnipotent, 

 local and not omnipresent, and ever embodied or immanent in some object, although it was believed that 

 it could be transferred, attracted, acquired, increased, suppressed, or enthralled by the orenda of occult 

 ritualistic formulas endowed with more potency. This postulation of a purely fictitious force or dynamic 

 energy must needs have been made by primitive man to explain the activities of life and nature, the latter 

 being conceived to be composed of living beings, for the concept of force or energy as an attribute or property 

 of matter had not yet been formed, hence the modern doctrine of the conservation of energy was unknown 

 to primitive thought. As all the bodies of the environment of primitive man were regarded by him as 

 endowed with life, mind, and volition, he inferred that his relations with these environing objects were 

 directly dependent on the caprice of these beings. So to obtain his needs man must gain the good will of 

 each one of a thousand controlling minds by prayer, sacrifice, some acceptable offering, or propitiatory act, 

 in order to influence the e.vercisc in his behalf of the orenda or magic power which he believed was controlled 

 by the particular being invoked. Thus it came that the possession of orenda or magic power is the dis- 

 tinctive characteristic of all the gods, and these gods in earlier time were all the bodies and beings of nature 

 in any manner aflccting the weal or woe of man. So primitive man interpreted the activities of nature 

 to be due to the .struggle of one orenda against another, put forth by the beings or bodies of his environment, 

 the former possessing orenda and the latter life, mind, and orenda only by virtue of his own imputation of 

 these things to lifeless objects. In the stress of life, coming into contact or more or less close relation with 

 certain bodies of his environment, more frequently and in a more decided manner than with the other 

 environing bodies, and learning to feel from these relations that these bodies through "the e.vercise of their 

 orenda controlled the conditions of his welfare and in like manner shaped his ill fare," man gradually came 

 to regard these bodies as the masters, the arbiters, the gods, of the conditions of his environment, whose aid, 

 good will, and even existence were absolutely necessary to his well-being and to the preservation of his life. 

 In the cosmogonic legends, the sum of the operations of this hypothetic magic power constitutes the story 

 of the phenomena of natiu-e and the biography of the gods, in all the planes of human culture. From the 

 least to the greatest, there are incomparable differences in strength, function, and scope of action among the 

 orendas, or magic powers, exercised by any group of such fictitious beings. Therefore it is not remarkable 

 to find in many legends that for specific purposes man may sometimes possess weapons whose orenda is 

 superior to that possessed by some of the primal beings of his cosmology. It is likewise found that the 

 number of purposes for which a given orenda may be efhcient varies widely. 



Consult Powell, introd. to Cushing's Zufii Folk Tales. 1901; Hewitt in Am. Anthrop., iv, 33-i6, 1(102. 



Note 4.— See Note 3. 



Note 5.— Otkon. The common Iroquois descriptive epithet and name applied to any object or being 

 which performs its functions and exercises its assiuned magic power or orenda (q. v.) in such manner as to 

 be not only inimical to human welfare, but hostile toand destructive of human life; it is the name in com- 

 mon use for all ferocious and monstrous beings, animals, and persons, especially such as are not normal in 

 size, power, and cunning, or such things in which there is marked incongruity between these properties of 

 beings. The term is often applied to fetishes and to similar things. As a quaUfler it is equivalent to the 

 English mysterious, monstrous, devilish, or rather demoniac; but as a noun, or name, to monster, demon. 



