40 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



" ' Tell your people that these things must cease. Tell them to 

 repent and cease.' " 



So they said and he said. Eniaiehuk. 



" * Now this shall be the way : They who belong to these totem 

 animal societies^ must throw tobacco and disband.' So they said." 

 " Now in those days when the head men heard this message they 

 said at once, in anger, ' We disband,' and they said this without 

 holding a ceremony as the messenger had directed."^ 



Eniaiehuk. 



SECTION 30 



** ' Now another message to tell your people. 



*' ' Four words the Creator has given for bringing happiness. They 



1 Animal Societies and Totems. The Seneca firmly believe that by using 

 the proper formula the favor of various animals can be purchased. The 

 animal petitioned it is believed will make the person successful in any pur- 

 suit in which itself is proficient. The charm-animal was sometimes revealed 

 in a dream, sometimes by a diviner of mysteries and was often sought di- 

 rectly. A warrior wishing to become a successful fisherman, for instance, 

 might do any one of three things. He might seek for a dream that would 

 show him what animal would make him an expert fisher, he might consult 

 a " clairvoyant " or he might go directly to a stream of water and selecting 

 some animal petition its favor. 



The patron of the fisheries was the otter and there is a special society of 

 those who have the otter for a " friend." The Society of Otters preserves 

 the rites of invocation and the method of propitiation and also the method 

 of healing afflicted members. 



Other animals which are thought to be " great medicine " are the eagle, 

 the bear, the buffalo ^nd the mythical ma'gwahe or mammoth bear that 

 was alternately a man and a beast. To be ungrateful to these givers of luck 

 is a sin that arouses the ire of the animal who will punish the offender by 

 inflicting him with some strange sickness. The offense may be one of neg- 

 lect or altogether unintentional and unknown. It is then the duty of the 

 society to appease the offended animal by performing the rites on a grand 

 scale that the individual has failed to do in the ordinary way. The ordinary 

 individual ceremony consisted simply of going to the bank of some clear 

 stream, in the case of the Otters for instance, and after smoking sacred 

 tobacco, casting the pulverized tobacco into the water at intervals during a 

 thanksgiving and praise chant. Then will the otters know that their human 

 brothers are not ungrateful for the fortune they are receiving. 



There were four societies, having as their genii the spirits of the bear, the 

 birds (eagle), the buffalo and the otter, respectively, and taking their names 

 from their guardian animal (Secret Medicine Societies of the Seneca, 



p. 113)- 



2 This was done at the suggestion of Cornplanter who is accused of en- 

 deavoring to upset the plans and prophecies of Handsome Lake in many 

 sly ways. 



