46 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1919. 



Troquoian peoples, as the second part of Iroquoian Cosmology, the 

 first part having been printed in the Twenty-first Annual Keport of 

 the bureau. The copying of the pencil text was completed, aggre- 

 gating 316 typewritten pages. This includes the supplementary- 

 myth of much later date than the accompanying version of the Myth 

 of the Beginnings. The most interesting feature of the supplemen- 

 tary myth is the naive description of one of the most remarkable 

 figures developed by the cosmic thinking of Iroquoian poets. This 

 potent figure, in whose keeping are life and the endless interchange 

 of the seasons, is most striking in his external aspect — one side of his 

 body being composed of living flesh and the other of crystal ice. In 

 the longer preceding myth, to which this is supplemental, the Master 

 of Life is an independent personage, and so also is his noted brother, 

 the Master of Winter, the Winter God, whose body is composed of 

 crystal ice. The Life God, or Master of Life, controlled the sum- 

 mer, and his brother, the Winter God, controlled the winter. So in 

 this peculiar figure there appears the inceptive fusing together of two 

 hitlierto independent gods who were brothers because they dwelt 

 together in space and time. 



This remarkable figure is, in fact, the symbol of the absorption of 

 the personality — the functions and activities — of the Master of 

 Winter (the Winter God) by the Master of Life and his powerful 

 aids, manifested in the power of the Master of Life (the Life God) 

 to save and to protect from dissolution and death his many wards, 

 all living things that comprise faunal and floral life. This fact 

 emerges from the experience of the human race from year to year. 

 This submergence of one divine personality in that of another is a 

 process of cosmic thinking encountered in the mythic philosophy of 

 other races. This figure, as described in this text, is worthy of inten- 

 sive study by the student of comparative mythology and religion. 

 The pencil texts of these myths aggregate 1,057 pages and the type- 

 written 316 pages. The tentative draft of the free translations of 

 these texts aggregates 250 pages of typewriting. Some work was 

 also done in supplying the first text with a literal interlinear trans- 

 lation. This will be ready for the press at an early date. 



Mr. Hewitt also continued work on his league material, in which 

 he completed the copying of the corrected and amended native text 

 of the tradition of the founding of the Iroquois Leag-ue, or Confedera- 

 tion by Deganawida, making 189 typewritten pages, and also the 

 amended and corrected text of the Chant of the Condoling and 

 Instalhition Council, detailing some of the fundamental laws of the 

 league ; this occupies 13 pages. 



LTpon request, Mr. Hewitt also submitted an article on the League 

 of the Iroquois and Its Constitution for the Annual Eeport of the 

 Smithsonian Institution ; it occupies 30 typewritten pages. 



