THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FIVE NATIONS 69 



Then the man said : '" It is coming and will come soon." 



Then the lord said: " Where did you see the man?" He replied, 

 " I saw him in the lake with his canoe ; he came from the west and 

 he is going eastward." 



Then the lord began to wonder and said that he thought the 

 settlement should remain in silence, for all would be glad and satis- 

 fied. 



Dekanahwideh continued his journey and came to where the 

 great wizard Toh-do-dah-ho^ lived. This man was possessed with 

 great power as a wizard and no man could come to him without 

 endangering his life and it is related that even the fowls of the air 

 whenever they flew directly over his place of abode would die and 

 fall down on his premises, and that if he saw a man approaching 

 him he was sure to destroy him or kill him. This man was a 

 cannibal,^nd had left the settlement to which he belonged for a 

 long time and lived by himself in an isolated place. 



Dekanahwideh came^ and approached the abode of the cannibal 

 and saw him carrying a human body into his house and shortly 

 he saw him come out again and go down to the river and draw 

 some water. Dekanahwideh went closer and when he had come to 

 the house he went up onto the roof and from the chimney opening^ 

 he looked in and saw the owner come back with a pail of water, 

 put up a kettle on the fireplace to cook his meal and after it was 

 cooked he saw him take the kettle from the fire and place it at the 

 end of the fireplace and say to himself, " I suppose it is now time 

 for me to have my meal and after I am finished I will go where I 

 am required on business." 



Dekanahwideh moved still closer over the smoke hole and looked 

 straight down into the kettle. The man Tah-do-dah-ho was then 

 moving around the house and when he came back to take some of 

 the meat from the kettle he looked into it and saw that a man was 

 looking at him from out of the kettle. This was the reflection of 

 Dekanahwideh. Then the man Tah-do-dah-ho moved back and 

 sat down near the corner of the house and began to think seriously 

 and he thought that it was a most wonderful thing which had hap- 

 pened. He said to himself that such a thing had never occurred 

 before as long as he had been living in the house. " I did not 



^ Thadoda'ho. 



2 He came on a tour of inspection. The Onondaga version says it was 

 Hiawatha. 



3 Albert Cusick, the Onondaga informant, says this incident is an interpola- 

 tion. 



