COUNCILS AND CEREMONIES OF ADOPTION OF NEW YORK INDIANS 38'" 



6 Now then another thing we say, we younger brothers. If any 

 one should fall — it may be a principal chief will fall and descend 

 into the grave — then the horns shall be left on the grave, and as 

 soon as possible another shall be put in his place. This we say and 

 do, we three brothers. 



7 Now then another thing we say, we younger brothers. We will 

 gird the belt on you, with the pouch, and the next death will receive 

 the pouch ; whenever you shall know that there is death among us, 

 when the fire is made and the smoke is rising. This we say and do, 

 we three brothers. 



Now I have finished. Now show me the man ! [The one to be 

 made chief.] 



When all the wampum has been delivered the speaker says : 

 " Now show me the man," that is, the one to be made a chief. The 

 mourners reply : " Wait a little." The curtain is again hung, fol- 

 lowed by singing. Then it is removed and the wampum is returned 

 in the same way in which it was given as said before, but before 

 each address the mourners say : " You said so and so." This done, 

 the new chiefs are presented and receive wampum and brief charges. 

 It often happens that there is a dispute over someone who is to be 

 installed. 



The writer has used a fine copy of some Canadian songs which 

 was brought from Canada, but this does not include several things 

 which Mr Hale found elsewhere. He found a manuscript book at 

 Onondaga Castle in 1880, written in the Onondaga dialect. The 

 list of chiefs in this "closed with the words, " shotinastasonta 

 kanastajkona Ontaskaeken,' — literally, ' they added a frame pole to 

 the great framework, the Tuscarora nation.' ' : Hale, p. 153. He 

 said also: 



In the ms. book referred to in the last note, the list of councilors 

 was preceded by a paragraph, written like prose, but with many of 

 these interjections interspersed through it. The interpreter. Albert 

 Cusick, an intelligent. and educated man, assured me that this was a 

 song, and at my request, he chanted a few staves of it, after the 

 native fashion. The following are the words of this hymn, arranged 

 as they are sung. It will be seen that it is a sort of cento or com- 

 pilation, in the Onondaga dialect, of passages from various portions 

 of the Canienga Book of Rites, and chiefly from the section (29) 

 now under consideration : — 



