352 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



This wayside fire, which interrupts the roll call song, preserves 

 an old custom : that of welcoming official visitors at some distance 

 from the town. For ordinary purposes this meeting might once 

 have been at the line of the clearing, and the song welcoming 

 the visitors is now called At the Wood's Edge. For convenience 

 most of the songs appear together here, as in the Indian copy used, 

 and references will be made to them. They are not in due sequence 

 in this. As these songs are now known to but few Indians, an 

 expert chief is often loaned to conduct the ceremony for one or 

 both parties, as in ancient times. 



The song At the Wood's Edge is full of gratitude that their 

 friends have escaped every peril while on their mission of love, and 

 ends with a list of early villages of the three principal clans. At 

 the council house all business is to be duly completed, and there the 

 horns are to be taken off the dead chief's grave. The horns are as 

 significant of power to the Iroquois as to the ancient Hebrew. 

 When the song ends at the fire and the invitation wampum has been 

 returned, all form a procession and go to the council house. The 

 mourners silently lead the way, as being the hosts ; the visitors fol- 

 low, singing the roll call, and in the council house each party takes 

 its proper end. There the opening ceremony called The Old Way of 

 Mutual Greeting, is sung by the visitors, in which the old and 

 familiar modes of restoring the afflicted to a sound condition are 

 gone through. 



Until the curtains are hung the succeeding songs are by one 

 person, who walks to and fro- as he utters the long and monotonous 

 chant. Those behind the curtains are quite different. 



The laws which their ancestors established are recalled, the means 

 they took to strengthen the long house or league. As of old the 

 long list of the original 50 chiefs is chanted in one song, with some 

 words regarding each one. The three great clans and some early 

 towns belonging to them are mentioned. The chiefs themselves are 

 grouped in classes. In this song the Haii is repeated hundreds of 

 times, but is mostly omitted in Hale's version. As sung it is the 

 most prominent feature, and is expressive of joy or sorrow accord- 

 ing to the tone, as with some of our ejaculations. Hennepin said: 

 " There was an Iroquese captain who, one day wanting his bowl, 

 entered into the town of Montreal in Canada, crying ' Hai ! hai ! ' 



