I04 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 70 



Since nearly all the traditions recorded in these texts were trans- 

 mitted by memory for about 350 years it was inevitable that some 

 of the essentially important details of the structure of the league 

 and of its organic institutions should not have been remembered 

 with the same fidelity by different persons, and so differences of 

 opinion and marked variation in statement are not infrequently en- 

 countered concerning the same subject-matter. The problem for 



Fig. 113. — Baby Cradle Sash (Chippewa). 



the student, then, is to determine by a sufficiently liroad survey of 

 differing traditions what the most probable facts were upon which 

 these conflicting" views and statements were originally liased. The 

 motives of the founders are not at all times remembered. As the 

 institutions of the league are slowly becoming obsolete in the face 

 of assimilated European culture and civilization this reconstructive 

 work is one of great difficulty. 



