MOONKYJ NOTES AND I'AKAl.I.KLS 489 



shells were nioregeneriilly sha]H'il inln iieiiilaiitsaml -.'orfiets. Fora <;<iim1 eye-witness 

 accimiit 1)1" the mainifacture and use of wanipinii and gorgets of shell among the South 

 Atlantic tribes, see Lawson, History of Carolina, :il5-31<). 



i)0. IliADEONijTnE Seneca (p. 356) : Of this story Schoolcraft says: "Thefollowiiig 

 incident in the verbal annals of Iroquois hardihood and heroism was related to ino 

 by the intelligent Seneca, Tetoyoah, William Jones of Cattaraugus, along with other 

 reminiscences of the ancient Cherokee wars." Hewitt thinks the projier Seneca 

 form of the name may be Hftia'di'oiinr, signifying " His body lies supine." 



92. Escape of the Senec.\ boys (p. 359) : The manuscript notes from which this 

 and several following traditions are arranged are in the archives of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, and were obtained in 1886-87 among the Seneca Indians of 

 New York by Mr Jeremiah Curtin, since noted as the author of several standard 

 collections of Indian and Eurojiean myths and the translator of the works of the 

 Polish novelist, Sienkiewicz. 



Goii-e' ! — This is a long drawn halloo without significance except a-s a signal to arrest 

 attention. It strikingly resembles the Australian "bush cry" Cumvce' .' used for the 

 same purpose. 



93. The Unseen Helpers (p. 359): The meaning of the Seneca nan:e can not be 

 given. 



Animal iVotec/ocs— The leading incident of this tale is closely jiaralleled tiy a Kiowa 

 story, told by the old men as an actual occurrence of some fifty years ago, concerning 

 a warrior who, having been desperately wounded in an engagement with Jlexican 

 troojjs in southern Texas, was abandoned to die by his retreating comrades. At 

 night, while lying upon the ground awaiting death, and unable to move, he heard a 

 long howd in the distance, which was repeated nearer and nearer, until at last he heard 

 the patter of feet in the sand, and a wolf came up and licked the festering wounds of 

 the warrior with such soothing effect that he fell asleep. This was repeated several 

 times until the man was able to sit up, when the wolf left him, after telling him — not 

 in the vision of a dream, but as a companion face to face — that he must keep up his 

 courage, and that he ^\ould get back in safety to his tribe. Soon afterward the 

 womided warrior was found by a party of Comanche, who restored him to his people. 

 At the next Sun dance he made public thanksgiving for his rescue (see the author's 

 Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, in Seventeenth Annual Report Bureau of Amer- 

 ican Ethnology, part 1, 1901). The story is not impossible. A w'olf may easily have 

 licked the wounded man's sores, as a dog might do, and through the relief thus 

 afforded, if not by sympathy of companionship, have enabled him to hold out unlil 

 rescued by friends. The rest is easy to the imagination of an Indian, who lielicves 

 that there is no es,«ential difference between himself and other animals. 



The War Woman — The women described as having jiower to decide the fate of cap- 

 tives, mentioned also in the next story (number 94), are evidently the female digni- 

 taries among the ancient Cherokee known to early writers as "War Women" or 

 "Pretty Women." Owing to the decay of Cherokee tradition and custom it is now 

 impossible to gather anything positive on the subject from Indian informants, but from 

 documentary references it is apparent that there existed among the Cherokee a custom 

 analogous to that found among the Iroquois and ])robably other Eastern tribes, by 

 which the decision of important questions relating to peace and w'ar was left to a vote 

 of the women. Among the Iroquois this privilege was exercised by a council of 

 matrons, the mothers of the tribes. It may have been the same among the Chero- 

 kee, with the "Pretty Woman" to voice the decision of the council, or the final ren- 

 dering may have been according to the will of the "Pretty Woman" herself. The 

 institution served in a measure to ndtigate the evils of war and had its origin in the 

 clan system. Under this system a cajjtive enemy was still an enemy until he had 

 been adopted into the tribe, which could only be done through adoption into a clan 

 and family. As clan descent was reckoned through the women it rested with them 



