MORGAN.] ORIGIN OF THE PLAN OF A CONFEDERACY. Dili 
confederacy was the ultimate stage of organization among the American 
aborigines, its existence would be expected in the most intelligent tribes 
only. 
It is affirmed by the Iroquois that the confederacy was formed by a 
council of wise men and chiefs of the five tribes which met for that purpose 
on the north shore of Onondaga Lake, near the site of Syracuse; and that 
betore its session was concluded the organization was perfected and set in 
immediate operation. At their periodical councils for raising up sachems 
they still explain its origin as the result of one protracted effort of legisla- 
tion. It was probably a consequence of a previous alliance for mutual 
defense, the advantages of which they had perceived and which they 
sought to render permanent. 
The origin of the plan is ascribed to a mythical, or, at least, tradition- 
ary person, Hd-yo-went'-hd, the Hiawatha of Longfellow’s celebrated poem, 
who was present at this council and the central person in its management. 
In his communications with the council he used a wise man of the Onon- 
dagas, Da-gd-no-we'-dd, as an interpreter and speaker to expound the 
structure and principles of the proposed confederacy. The same tradition 
further declares that when the work was accomplished Hd-yo-went'-hd 
miraculously disappeared in a white canoe, which arose with him in the air 
and bore him out of their sight. Other prodigies, according to this tradi- 
tion, attended and signalized the formation of the confederacy, which is 
still celebrated among them as a masterpiece of Indian wisdom. Such in 
truth it was; and it will remain in history as a monument of their genius in 
developing gentile institutions. It will also be remembered as an illustra- 
tion of what tribes of mankind have been able to accomplish in the art of 
government while in the Lower Status of barbarism, and under the disad- 
vantages this condition implies. 
Which of the two persons was the founder of the confederacy it is dif- 
ficult to determine. The silent Hd-yo-went'-hd was, not unlikely, a real per- 
son of Iroquois lineage ;* but tradition has enveloped his character so com- 
pletely in the supernatural that he loses his place among them as one of 
their number. If Hiawatha were a real person, Da-gd-no-we'-dé must hold 
*My friend Horatio Hale, the eminent philologist, came, as he informed me, to this conclusion. 
