THE CODE OF HANDSOME LAKE / 



Those who Hve in communities in which the prophet's word is still 

 strong are drawn to the ceremonies and to the recitals because it is 

 a part of their social system. 



Its great appeal to the older people is that it presents in their own 

 language a system of moral precepts and exhortations that they can 

 readily understand. The prophet, who is called '' our great 

 teacher " (sedwa'gowa'ne'), was a man of their own blood, and the 

 ground that he traversed was their ancestral domain. Patriotism 

 and religious emotion mingle, and, when the story of the " great 

 wrongs " is remembered, spur on a ready acceptance. The fraudu- 

 lent treaty of Buffalo of 1838, for example, caused many of the 

 Buft'alo Senecas to move to the Cattaraugus reservation. Here they 

 settled at Ganun'dase' or Newtown, then a desolate wilderness. 

 Their bitter wrongs made them hate white men and to resist all 

 missionary efforts. Today there is no mission chapel at Newtown. 

 All attempts have failed.^ Whether future ones will readily succeed 

 is conjectural. The Indian there clings to his prophet and heeds 

 the word of his teacher. At Cold Spring on the Allegany is an- 

 other center of the '' old time people.'' On the Tonawanda reserva- 

 tion this element is chiefly centered " down below " at the long 

 house. On the Onondaga reservation the long house stands in the 

 middle of the Onondaga village and the Ganung'sisne'ha (long 

 house people) are distributed all over the reservation but perhaps 

 chiefly on Hemlock road. It is an odd sight, provoking strange 

 thoughts, to stand at the tomb of the prophet near the council house 

 and watch each day the hundreds of automobiles that fly by over 

 the State road. The Tuscarora and St Regis Indians are all nomin- 

 ally Christians and they have no long houses. 



The present form of the Gai'wiio' was determined by a council 

 of its preachers some fifty years ago. They met at Cold Spring, 

 the old home of Handsome Lake, and compared their versions. 

 Several differences were found and each preacher thought his ver- 

 sion the correct one. At length Chief John Jacket, a Cattaraugus 

 Seneca, and a man well versed in the lore of his people, was chosen 

 to settle forever the words and the form of the Gai'wiio'. This 

 he did by writing it out in the Seneca language by the method taught 

 by Rev. Asher Wright, the Presbyterian missionary. The preachers 

 assembled again, this time, according to Cornplanter, at Cattaraugus 

 where they memorized the parts in which they were faulty. The 

 original text was written on letter paper and now is entirely 4^" 



1 See Caswell, Our Life Among- the Iroquois. Bpston, iSofj. 



