COUNCILS AND CEREMONIES OF ADOPTION OF NEW YORK INDIANS 349 



The noblest matron in the tribe or in the nation chuses the person 

 she approves of most, and declares him chief. The person who is 

 to govern must be come to years of maturity ; and when the heredi- 

 tary chief is not as yet arrived at this period, they appoint a regent, 

 who has all the authority, but which he holds in name of the minor. 

 These chiefs generally have no great marks of respect paid them, 

 and if they are never disobeyed, it is because they know how to set 

 bounds to their authority. Charlevoix, 2 124 



Several instances of minor chiefs are recorded in colonial docu- 

 ments, and in 1895 a 5 year old boy of the Onondaga Bear clan was 

 publicly made a chief. As such he will attend councils, but will 

 have no voice or vote in them until of fit age. 



Mr Chadwick carefully inquired how Iroquois chiefs were nomi- 

 nated in Canada, comparing several accounts with the following 

 results. 



The right of nomination vests in the oldest near female relative 

 of the deceased chief, that is, the oldest of a class composed of his. 

 maternal grandmother and great aunts, if living, but if none of those 

 are living, then the oldest of a class composed of his mother and her 

 sisters (daughters of the mother's mother), or if none of these, 

 then of his sisters, daughters of his mother, and if these also are 

 wanting, then of. his nieces, daughters of his mothers daughters; and 

 if all these fail, then the right passes to collateral relatives of his 

 mother's totem, and if there are none of these, no nomination can 

 be made, and the chiefship becomes extinct. The nominator con- 

 sults with the two next senior women, ascertained by the same 

 order, and classification of the family is thus made. It does not 

 seem very clear what occurs if the three do not agree ... If a 

 chiefship fails in consequence of the family to which it belongs be- 

 coming extinct, either in the person of a nominator, or of a qualified 

 nominee, the Great Council has power to transfer the chiefship to 

 another family (preferably one which is, or is considered to be akin 

 to the extinct family), in which a chief is then nominated by the 

 senior woman and her associates, and assumes the title in the usual 

 manner, whereupon the succession goes in that familv. Chadwick. 

 36-38 



Of original titles of the Five Nations in Canada 11 have thus 

 become extinct, and the sixth nation has there but four out of its 

 13 chiefs. Most of those in New York keep their offices filled. 



The line of descent was often through the woman and always so 

 among the Huron-Iroquois. Charlevoix said " Among the Huron 



