940 



WHITE 1)0G SACRIFICE 



[b. a. e. 



of the god to change the decree of Fate, 

 i. e. the estabUshed order of things, 

 or to an abortive attempt of the people 

 to perform a rite or ceremony in accord- 

 ance with a prescribed ritual. These 

 considerations exempted Teharonhia- 

 wagon and other gods from censure for 

 the nonperformance of the impossible, 

 and they also show that sometimes the 

 gods stood in need of human aid, either 

 directly or ceremonially. 



The New Year ceremony is commonly 

 performed in every so-called long-house 

 or assembly-hall in the tribe, for there 

 are sometimes several such structures 

 within the tribal limits, one in each vil- 

 lage or small town, although two or more 

 contiguous small villages may unite in 

 holding a joint session. However, the 

 village which is the first to celebrate the 

 festival must begin it on the day pre- 

 scrit»ed by the ritual, and the other 

 villages consecutively; or the several vil- 

 lages and towns may perform the cere- 

 mony simultaneously. 



The name given by all the Iroquoian 

 peoples, with perhaps the tentative ex- 

 ception of the Cherokee, to this cere- 

 mony is some variant, dialectic or other, 

 of Onnonhouarori (Lafitau). In the Jesuit 

 Relations and in other early writings the 

 following forms occur: Onnonhouaroia, 

 Honnonouaroria, Honnaouaroria, Hono- 

 novaroria, Hagnonharioraha, Ononhwaroia, 

 Ononhara, AnnonhSaroria (Huron), Gan- 

 onhSarori (Mohawk, Bruyas). In the 

 present Onondaga it appears as Ganon- 

 'hwaVwV, a form cognate with iakono'"- 

 ^hwaiW'ha\ signifying 'it drives, urges, 

 or distracts one's brain,' having reference 

 to the supposed promptings of the soul, 

 inspired by the tutelary to seek to ac- 

 quire something designed to promote and 

 secure the welfare of the body. Hence 

 the song or chant commonly expressed 

 such a desire. In describing such parts 

 of this ceremony as were observed by 

 them, the early Jesuit missionaries 

 among the Hurons and the Iroquois, 

 and the early French writers of Canada, 

 employed expressions like la folie, ou le 

 renversement de lite ou du cervelle, i. e. 

 "the madness, or the dizziness or swim- 

 ming in the head or brain," and avoir la 

 tele en echarpe, i. e. "to have the head 

 in a sling," and, taking a part for the 

 whole, "the festival of dreams, or of de- 

 sires," and confusing the rite of purifica- 

 tion by fire with the rite of kindling 

 the new fire, " the fire festivals. " Father 

 De Carheil, writing of the Cayuga in 1670, 

 says that they do not worship the dream, 

 as such, as the Master of Life, but a 

 certain akatkonsoria ('false- face'), iden- 

 tifying it with Teharonhiawagon. It is 

 only through these expressions that the 

 ceremony may be recognized in these 



early writings. Among very early writers 

 among the Mohawk, parts of the cere- 

 mony have been recorded by Van Curler 

 (1634), and among the Hurons by Sagard 

 (1626) who gave a very incisive account, 

 from which it appears that the partici- 

 pants in some of the rites were more 

 obsessed and maniacal than are those of 

 the present-day Iroquois. Wholly mis- 

 apprehending the motives underlying 

 the several rites of the ceremony, Brebeuf 

 (1636), like his contemporaries, says that 

 the Ononhara, "a certain kind of mad- 

 ness," is for fools (or madcaps). 



In early times the number of dogs to 

 be sacrificed was apparently not ritually 

 limited; for in a ceremony held by the 

 Hurons, Feb. 24, 1656, in fulfilment of 

 an order purporting to have been issued 

 by an apparition of Teharonhiawagon 

 himself, 10 dogs, 10 wampum beads from 

 every cabin, a wampum belt 10 strands 

 in breadth, 4 measures of sunflower seed, 

 and as many beans, were sacrificed, for 

 the entire destruction of the country had 

 been threatened in case of a failure to 

 provide the required gifts and offerings. 

 At another, held in 1639, likewise in an- 

 swer to a direct order of an apparition, 

 22 presents were asked, among the items 

 of which were 6 dogs of a certain form 

 and color, 50 pieces of tobacco, a large 

 canoe, etc. It is not until late modern 

 times that the dog (or dogs) was not partly 

 eaten after having been partially burned 

 in the sacrificial fire; for as early as 1642 

 the Jesuit Relations say that the dogs are 

 eaten as "they usuall)' eat their cap- 

 tives." The missionary Kirkland wit- 

 nessed among the Seneca a ceremony 

 lasting 7 days, in which two white dogs 

 were strangled, painted, decorated, and 

 hung up in the center of the village on 

 the evening preceding the beginning of 

 the rites; and after the performances had 

 lasted several days, the dogs were taken 

 down and placed on a pyre, and when 

 nearly consumed one was removed and 

 placed in a kettle with vegetables and 

 eaten. This shows that as late as 1760 

 the flesh of the victim was ceremonially 

 eaten among the Iroquois. 



According to the ritual, in the per- 

 formance of this and of all other tribal 

 ceremonies each of the two phratries of 

 clans (see Tribe) has essential parts in 

 every act to execute, which the other 

 may not, without at once destroying the 

 assumed mystic effect of the ceremony 

 on the welfare of the people and of the 

 Master of Life. 



In the preparations preliminary to the 

 sacrifice of the victim two fire rites are 

 performed, which consume three days; 

 one is for the purpose of rekindling the 

 fires after removing the old from all the 

 cabins of the community. The Directors 



