56 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



And my spirit said as it builded me: ' You were fearless and 

 brave in your warrior life, and I will spread your arms broad 

 against foes. Your swift running blood will never pale and creep 

 to your feet. Grow strong, and tall as the forest guide. Grow 

 strong, and high — the sky is not far ! ' " 



And the Speaking Pine said: " My spirit has builded, and I 

 watch the sky. When strong tempests battle, I war with their 

 rage as, in their moaning, voices return from my dead, and, as of 

 old, I toss them back to the killing winds. 



When the soughing breeze passes my strong watchtower, a life 

 stirs in me that is gentle and kind as the mother bird brooding her 

 young, and I open my arms wide to the singing wind that tunes 

 me to dreams. 



Thus forever I watch as my horns lift to the touch of the morning 

 sun and flush to its west fire glow. 



I am the Pine! the guide of my forest kin! I rock the sunlights 

 to drowse in my arms as the winds waft my fragance afar. In my 

 silence the night shadows dream of the day as I tower strong and 

 high and reach to the sky! ' 



GA-DO WAAS, HIS STAR BELT, THE MILKY WAY 



Ga-do-waas dwells in the top sky, and with his four eyes watches 

 every corner of the earth. 



At one time, Ga-do-waas was an earth dweller and a hunter, 

 but because of his presuming to celestial power and destroying all 

 the game, he was transferred to the heavens, and watches the gate 

 through which each soul passes to immortality. 



When Ga-do-waas assumed his duty as soul watcher, he removed 

 his hunting belt, which possessed the charm of enticing game, and 

 decorating it with stars, cast it into space, where it spans the entire 

 heavens and illuminates each path 1 to which he guides a soul. 



So luminous is this path that its blended light reaches down to 

 the earth and divides its rays, stationing one at each lodge where 

 a human is dying, that the departing soul may not lose its way as 

 it leaves the dead. 



No human has seen these rays, they are visible only to the soul. 

 The south wind accompanies the soul till it reaches the gate where 

 Ga-do-waas watches, and as it passes the portal of this journey 



1 The religious philosophy of the Iroquois teaches that each soul has its individual path 

 leading from the soul house, the body, to the great sky road, the Milky Way. The good 

 sky path is called Ga-o-ya"-de he-io-o'-dio' and the evil soul's road, o-a'-gwent. 



