IROQUOIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



161 



All men traveling under the great heavens 



You have invited, your grandchildren and all nations! 



Oh you, that make the noise, 



You, the great Thunderer! 



Your grandchildren wish to thank you ! 



All your grandchildren have asked me 



To offer this incense upon the mountain to you!" 



(Speaking to the Great Spirit, Sho-gwa-yah-dih-sah) : 



" Oh you the Manager of All Things! 



We ask you to help us, 



To help us make this medicine strong! 



You are the Creator, 



The Most High, 



The Best Friend of men! 



We ask you to help us ! 



We implore your favor! 



I have spoken." 



After the tobacco throwing ceremony the keeper of the rattles 

 gives each person in the circle a large gourd rattle and then the 

 lights are extinguished leaving the assembly in total darkness. 

 The watcher of the medicine uncovers the bundles exposing it to 

 the air and as he does so a faint glow like a luminous cloud hovers 

 over the table and disappears. 1 The leader or holder of the song 

 gives a signal with his rattle calling the assembly to order and then 

 begins to beat his rattle. The people shake their rattles in regular 

 beats until all are in unison when the holder of the song commences 

 the song, which is taken up by the company. And such a song it 

 is ! It is a composition of sounds that thrills the very fiber of 

 those who hear it. It transports one from the lodge back into the 

 dark mysterious stone age forest and in its wierd wild cadences it 

 tells of the origin of the society, of the hunter of the far south 

 country and how when he was killed by the enemy the animals 

 to whom he had always been a friend restored him to life. It 

 tells of his pilgrimage over plain and mountain, over river and 

 lake, ever following the call of the night bird and the beckoning 

 of the winged light. It is an opera of nature's people that to Indian 

 ideas is unsurpassed by any opera of civilization. 



The first song requires one hour for singing. Lights are then 

 turned up and the feast maker passes the kettle of sweetened 

 strawberry juice and afterward the calumet 2 from which all draw 



!This does not occur when the medicine has been adulterated with powdered roots. 

 2 In recent ceremonies each member smoked his own pipe of Indian tobacco. 



