172 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



but not at Onondaga now, though Clark speaks of these there at 

 the New Year's feast: 



The fire is now extinguished ini every cabin, the committee enter 

 the dwellings (the inmates expecting them,) and with a small 

 wooden shovel scatter the ashes about in every direction. The 

 hearths are made clean ; new fire is struck from the flint and 

 rekindled; thus they proceed from house to house till every one 

 is visited and purified. Clark, 1 : 56 



Jedediah Horsford gave a similar account in 1816, at Squakie 

 Hill, N. Y., but with a difference. The proceedings of each day 

 were not the same as at Onondaga, and on the second day, he said: 



Five Indians appeared with long wooden shovels, and began to 

 scatter fire and ashes until the council-house became filled with dust 

 and smoke. This ceremony was repeated at each house several 

 times during the day, but to a different tune at each round. 

 Speeches, exciting levity, occurred the third morning. About noon 

 the fire-shoveling was repeated with increased vigor. Doty, p.54 



In Canada the scattering of ashes, or Ro-non-wa-ro-rih, is two 

 days after the burning of the white dog, and leaders of the paddle 

 party are appointed. New paddles are distributed to all, which are 

 returned to the master of ceremonies after a song called " tipping 

 the paddle," and other observances. 



Idols 



In a strict sense idols were not a feature of New York aboriginal 

 life. Most Indians had amulets, charms or medicine, but these were 

 personal and usually out of sight. Perhaps the reverence ' paid to 

 Christian symbols, or contact with western and southern tribes, may 

 have suggested something more tangible than unseen spirits, present 

 everywhere. They reverenced certain rocks and places at an early 

 day, as being the homes of powerful spirits, and made offerings to 

 these, but a change seems to have come early in the 18th century, 

 affecting the Senecas particularly. The Delawarcs shared in this : 

 " Their only idol was called, in Delaware, Wsinkhoalican. It was 

 the figure of a miniature human head carved of wood and carried 

 about their persons, or cut, life-size, out of a post, and set up in 

 the middle of the house where they sacrificed." De Schweinitz, p.96 



Loskiel said that the head was put on a pole; and it would seem 



