THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FIVE NATIONS 9/ 



of the Snipe Clan and these two shall be cousins and they shall 

 guard the door of the long- house. 1 And we shall now floor the 

 doorway with slippery elm bark, and it shall be that whenever we 

 have visitors from other nations who will have any message or any 

 business to lay before the Confederate Council, these two door- 

 keepers shall escort and convey them before the council, but when- 

 ever the visitor or visitors have come for evil purposes, then 

 Kanonkedahwe shall take them by the hand and lead them in and 

 they shall slip on the slippery elm bark and fall down and they 

 shall be reduced to a heap of bones (He-yoh-so-jo-de-hah 2 in 

 Onondaga language; Ehyohdonyohdaneh in Mohawk), and the 

 bones of the enemy shall fall into a heap before the lords of the 

 confederacy." (A heap of bones here signifies a conquered nation 

 to be dealt with by the lords of the confederacy who shall decide 

 as to what manner they will be allowed to exist in the future.) 



LAWS OF THE CONFEDERACY 



Then Dekanahwideh again said: "We have completed the Con- 

 federation of the Five Nations, now therefore it shall be that here- 

 after the lords who shall be appointed in the future to fill vacancies 

 caused by death or removals shall be appointed from the same 

 families and clans from which the first lords were created, and 

 from which families the hereditary title of lordships shall descend." 



Then Dekanahwideh further said : " I now transfer and set over 

 to the women who have the lordships' title vested in them, that they 

 shall in Uhe future have the power to appoint the successors from 

 time to time to fill vacancies caused by death or removals from 

 whatever cause." 



Then Dekanahwideh continued and said : " We shall now build 

 a confederate council fire 3 from which the smoke shall arise and 

 pierce the skies and all nations and people shall see this smoke. 

 And now to you, Thadodahho^ your brother and cousin colleagues 

 shall be left the care and protection of the confederate council fire, 

 bv the Confederate Nations." 



2 The term " long house " as applied to the confederacy is not generally 

 used by the Canadian Iroquois in their manuscript copies of the confederate 

 laws and legends. A mistaken notion that the long house idea originated with 

 Handsome Lake accounts for it. Newhouse used the term " long house " in 

 his earlier manuscripts but later erased it supplying the word " confederacy." 

 He explained this by saying that he had heard an old man say that long 

 house meant Handsome Lake's new religion, the thing that destroyed the 

 knowledge of the old ways. Thus the term was tabooed in connection with 

 the confederacy. 



2 E n 'yosodjoda"ha. 



3 Gadiista'ie n \ 



