I06 SMITHSONIAX MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 68 



to Alabama, which Dr. Swanton already studied among the Alabama 

 Indians in I'olk county, Texas, but more differences were found 

 between the two than it was supposed existed. He recorded about 

 150 pages of new text material with interlinear translations, and 

 carefully corrected about 125 pages previously obtained in Texas, 

 but found to be corrupted with Alabama expressions. 



ETHNOLOGY OF THE IROQUOIS 



On March 2, 191 7, l\Ir. J. X. B. Hewitt resumed his field studies 

 of the League of the Iroquois and of kindred matters relating to 

 the ethnology of the Iroquois, near I'rantford, Ontario, Canada. At 

 once he took up the textual and literary criticism of the extensive 

 native texts, chiefly in Mohawk, Onondaga, and Cayuga, relating 

 to the founding and to the structure and the purpose of the League 

 or Federation of the Five Tribes of the Iroquois. This work consists 

 in reading over, grammatically correcting, transposing misplaced 

 parts of texts, annotating obscure passages or obsolescent terms, 

 and, where new information shows the need, expanding the texts 

 with new material. The work is verv necessary in view of the fact 

 that much of it was recorded hastily from the dictation of untrained 

 native speakers who did not realize the imperative need of repeating 

 a sentence in the same terms in case it must be repeated. 



The difficulty of this task may be measurably realized when it is 

 taken into account that these texts aggregate nearly sixty thousand 

 native words or sentences. It is often necessary to read the words 

 and the immediate context over several times in order to decide upon 

 their tentative final form ; this is in addition to the reading of the entire 

 topic or " chapter." An example will suffice. In the Eulogy of the 

 Founders of the League occurs an expression which had been 

 recorded in all previous texts in such manner that it was translated, 

 " The Institution became aged or ancient,'' or " The Institution has 

 become useless from age."' lUit the correct text, thus found, signifies, 

 " It causes the Institution to become ancient or aged," or " The 

 Institution is being caused thereby to become old or ancient."' An 

 important distinction, because it does not state the fact that the 

 League has become old, but rather that the noted causes tend to 

 make it grow ancient or aged. These texts are read over with every 

 well-informed informant in order to elicit a full expression of the 

 informant's knowledge or criticism of the value and correctness of 

 the work of anodier. 



