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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



story of the witch fire, and taught them its dance which could no 

 more destroy them. 



Thus originated the Oh-gi-we, 1 the Death dance of the Iro- 

 quois, one of the rites of their Death watch which releases a 

 departed spirit from the evil influences of the witches. 



Death Dance 



Arranged by F. B. Converse, 1902 



TON-DA-YENT, THE TWELVE WARRIORS AND THE WHITE RABBIT 



In his youth he had been evil, but when grown to manhood, he 

 had conquered his bad and becoming a warrior had won great vic- 

 tories for his people. 



An unyielding leader, he was feared by his foes. Now he had 

 passed from his people, the Ton-da-yent, the war chief! 



The wailers had wept, the death song had been chanted, the 

 war paint lined his strong face, and they had crowned him with 

 the heron feathers, the Iroquois emblem of power. In his hands 

 they laid his stone scalping knife and war club, and robed in deer- 

 skin, his dead body waited the sunrise. All the night long it sol- 

 emnly waited. 



When the sun neared the east sky, they wrapped the dead war- 

 rior in the bark of the elm and lowered it into the earth, and an 

 aged priestess, Ho-non-di-ont, scattered small lumps of clay above 

 him, to propitiate the elements, earth, air and water, through 

 which his spirit must journey to its rest. 



1 The Oh-gi-we is a society with regular leaders and fixed rites. It is sometimes called 

 the " Talkers with the Dead." When the unhappy soul of the dead member appears to 

 one of the living either in a dream or in a waking vision, the ceremony is ordered in all haste. 

 The formula by which souls are released from influences which bind them unhappy to earth 

 forms the bulk of the Oh-gi-we ritual. 



