I58 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



When the Cayuga chief spoke at Montreal in 1661, on behalf of 

 the Onondagas, he said : " Behold, this is to draw the French to 

 us, in order that he may return upon his mat, which we have pre- 

 served for him at Gannentaa, where his house yet remains which 

 he inhabited when he dwelt with us." If a colony of nuns would 

 also go there, " We will prepare them great cabins, and the most 

 beautiful mats of the country are destined for them." Relation, 

 1661 



Neatness was hardly an aboriginal virtue; but an early French 

 visitor to Onondaga, in 1655, observed that its streets were very 

 clean when he made his grand entry, though the proverb has it that, 

 the day Rome was unswept, the stranger came. In this case 

 preparations had been made for the French visitor. Nearly a cen- 

 tury later Cammerhoff and Zeisberger came to Onondaga, and were 

 welcomed to Canassatego's large house by his wife, who sent for 

 her husband: 



In the meantime the house was being swept, and after an apart- 

 ment had been prepared for us, we were invited into it, and the one 

 side which was covered with beautiful mats was assigned to us. 

 It was large enough for 6 Brethren to have lodged there comfort- 

 ably, and was on the same side of the house as Ganassateco's own 

 apartment. A room opposite to us was shown to our Gajuka. 

 Cammerhoff, mss. 



This was in 1750, but sweeping was then no new Iroquois custom. 

 In the preceding century Father Bruyas wrote the Mohawk word 

 onhewen, to sweep, and jagonhewatha, a broom. Onnawenskeri is 

 another name for more than one of these. Zeisberger preserved a 

 long name for broom ; and the present Onondaga name of kon-wen- 

 cho-sat'-ah, or ground sweeper, recalls the primitive floors of bark 

 or log cabins. To place the broom across the door is still the 

 Onondaga way of saying that no one is at home. Beside the early 

 splint broom, a very effective one was made of twigs of hemlock 

 spruce, bound around a handle. Indians and white men alike used 

 this. In the journal of a Moravian Indian village on the Susque- 

 hanna in 1762, it was said: " Some sisters went with two horses to 

 gather wood for brooms and baskets." 



