56 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



SECTION 65 



" ' Now another message. 



" 'It has been a custom when a person knows of a healing herb 

 to ask payment for giving it to a patient. Now we say that this is 

 not right. It is not right to demand compensation for treating the 

 sick. If such is done it adds greater afflictions to the sick one. 

 The Creator has given different people knowledge of different 

 things and it is the Creator's desire that men should employ their 

 knowledge to help one another, especially those who are afflicted. 

 Now moreover the person helped out ought only to give tobacco for 

 an offering.' " 



So they said and he said. Eniaiehuk. ■ 



section 66 



" ' Now another message. 



" ' Now it is said that your fathers of old never reached the true 

 lands of our Creator nor did they ever enter the house of the 

 tormentor, Ganos'ge'. 1 It is said that in some matters they did the 

 will of the Creator and that in others they did not. They did both 

 good and bad and none was either good or bad. They are there- 

 fore in a place separate and unknown to us, we think, enjoying 

 themselves.' " 



So they said and he said. Eniaiehuk. 



section 67 



" ' Now another message. 



" 'Now it is said that your people must change certain customs. 

 It has been the custom to mourn at each recurring anniversary of 

 the death of a friend or relative. 2 It is said that while you are 



ing, for we are very sick. You have said that all the world might come to 

 you, so I have come. I give you thanks for your benefits and thank the 

 Creator for your gift." 



When the last puff of tobacco smoke had arisen the gatherer of herbs 

 begins his work. He digs the plant from the roots and breaking off the seed 

 stalks drops the pods into the hole and gently covers them over with fertile 

 leaf mold. 



'" The plant will come again," he says, " and I have not destroyed life 

 but helped increase it. So the plant is willing to lend me of its virtue." 

 Gahadondeh, (Woodland Border), Seneca. 



1 The evil spirit has no domain except his house. A land in which the 

 condemned spirit might roam would not be so terrible but eternal confine- 

 ment within a house was considered a horrible fate by the liberty-loving 

 Iroquois. 



2 See Funeral and Mourning Customs, p. 107. 



