ETHNOLOGICAL RESEARCHES AMONG THE IROQUOIS AND CHIPPEWA

]\Ir.J. N. B.Hewitt, ethnologist,Bureau of

American

Ethnology,

left

Washington

in

May,

1925, for field duty and resumed his Studies

among

the Six Iroquois Nations or Tribes, namely, the

Mohawk,

Seneca,

Onondaga,

Oneida, Cayuga, and the Tuscarora,

alldwellingon the

Haldimand

(irantonthe

Grand

Riverin Ontario, Canada.

In previous years

Mr.

Hewitt had recorded with great care from the dictation of themost intelligent living statesmen, ritualists, and counsellors, voluminous texts relating to the complex institutions of the League. Because the

war

of the

American

Revolution had badly disrupted the tribes of the League and the

League

itself, ]\Ir. Hewitt ^inevitably encountered variant versions of

many

por- tions of thetraditions, rituals, chants, and addresses relating to the organization,constitution,ordinances,andregulations of the League, and recorded these variant versions. In the furtherance of this task, ]\Ir. Hewitt again took

up

the literary study, interpretation,

and

translation of the texts

embodying

the laws, ordinances, and the regulations, the chants and the rituals of condolence for the deadrotiyancr and kofitiyancr (the native

name

of the federalcoun- sellors), and the installation of the rotiyancr

and

the kontiyaner (elect)

(who

constituted the councils of thetribeandof theLeague, inaddition tothe chiefs).

The

firstis the masculine,andthesecond the feminine, formof thenoun.

The

organic institutions of the League of the Iroquois for over one hundred and fifty years have been subject to the action of various destructive external and internal forces, and so it is that

many

of the most distinctive institutions of the League have long been inoperativethrough the failure of the leadersto execute them.

The

Governor General in Council by an

Order

in Council on September 17. 1924,abrogated the organicinstitutions of the Cana- dian part of the League. This crisis in the affairs of these tribes arose because the government of the League of the Iroquois had l^ecome such a travesty of the complex institution established by the great pro])het-statesman, Deganawida, and his astute collabora- tors, that it failed to function organically.

By

the aid of

Mohawk

informants.

Mr.

Hewitt

was

enabled to resolve the lexical and the grammatic difficulties of the

Mohawk

texts of certain inijiortant rituals of the Council of Condolence for deceased roti\ancr and the installation of the rotiyancr elect

NO. ^I

SMITHSONIAN

EXPLORATIONS, I925 II5

and to translate into free English speechone of theserituals and to discover the reason for its most peculiar name.

The

title of this ritual is Ka'rhawc"' linl'fo"' in

Mohawk,

and (7a' liawc"' hli' di' in

Onondaga, meaning

^"Cast or

Thrown Over

the

Grand

Forest.''

To

learn the cause of giving so peculiar a

name

is to learn one of the processes of constructing rituals.

Legislativeorceremonial action istakenbythetribe only through the orderly cooperation of the twoconstitutive Sisterhoods of clans,

commonly

called Phratries in early ethnologic writings. This dual- ism in the highest units of organization

was

based originally on definite mythic concepts. Briefly, the one Sisterhood of tribes svm- bolized the Female Principle or

Motherhood

in Nature, and the other, the

Male

Principle or Fatherhood in Nature.

The

Sisterhood of tribes functioned by the independent action of

itsconstituent institutional units

—

^{every severaltril^e. In turn,every}

tribe functioned through the units of its

own

internal organiza- tion

—

each several clan, to execute its prescribed part in the larger federal action, which otherwise could not be authentic and authori- tative; so that a clan, or an individual in a clan, in special cases involving personal rights, might prevent vital federal action.

So

personal rights were abundantly safeguarded.

In addition to the chant called "Cast

Over

the

Grand

Forest^"

mentioned above, the most distinctive one of the Council of Con- dolence and Installation of theLeague of the Iroquois is thatwhich

is designated as ^"

The

Seven Songs of Farewell." This is in- toned in behalf of the deceased

member

of the Federal Council which, as a Council of Condolence and Installation, has met to condole his death with his kinsmen and to install his successor.

These two chants are respectively divided into two portions.

The

first six of the ^"Seven Songs of Farewell^" are followed by the first five paragraphs of the chant ^"Cast

Over

the

Grand

Forest."

A

veil of skins divides the

Mother

from the Father Side during thechanting of the^"Farewell Chant."

By

a searching study of all symbolic terms and ])hrases occurring in thechants of these rituals.

Mr.

Hewitt

was

able to identify the phrase, ^"the veil of skins^" with the other phrase ^"the

Grand

Forest."

The

^"

Grand

Forest^" represents ritualistically the totality of the forests which intervene between the lands of the

Mourning

Side of the

League

and those of the other side. Mr. Hewitt also

made

a freeEnglishtranslation of the chants,^"Cast

Over

the

Grand

Forest," and ^"

The

Seven Songs of Farewell."

Il6

SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS

COLLECTIONS VOL. 78

Mr.

Hewitt

made

a reconnaissance trip to the

Chippewa

of Garden River, Canada, forthepurposeof expandinghisknowledge of certain

Chippewa

texts, recorded in 1921 by him^

from

the dictation of ]\Ir. George Gabaoosa of

Garden

River, Canada, and also toobtain data inregardtothe derivation of

two

veryimportant proper names, namely,

Chippewa

and

Nanabozho

(appearing in literature also as Nenabojo, IMenaboju, and

Wenaboju).

The name Chippewa

is the generic designation of a historically important group of Algonquian tribes of the northwestern United States. Various unsatisfactory derivations have been given to it,

and it appears in literature with no less than 97 variant spellings.

For two

years

Mr.

Hewitt has had in

mind

a definition of the

name Chippewa

whichbrings outone of thedistinctive artsof these people, just as the

Ottawa

received their

name

^{of "}

The

Traders^"

because for the

moment

thebusiness of trading

was

then ethnically distinctive.

To

those

who

first gave the

name Chippewa

to these people, picture-writing

was

their preeminent characteristic.

And

the birch bark records of the

Chippewa

are sufficiently prominent intheir cultureto benoteworthy.

The

stem of the term

may

be found in the

Chippewa

expression, nind ojibktu,

meaning

"_I mark, write, on

some

object."

The form

ojibiwa used as an appellative in the plural

would become

ojibweg, which used as an ethnic appellation signifies "those

who make

pictographs."

Mr.

George Gabaoosa. of

Garden

River, Canada, a most intelligent Chippewa, collaborated in the derivation of this tribal name.

The

present writer is not aware that any consistent

meaning

has been given by any other student to the proper

name Nanabozho (Wenaboju,

Menaboju, etc., being other spellings of it) of the Algonquian biogeneticmyth. Briefly, it is the

Myth

of Mudjikewis, the First

Born

on Earth,

commonly

called

The

Story of Inabi"- oji'o' (/.c, Nanabozho.) This story, which is remarkable for beautyand comprehensiveness,relatesthat on theshore of the great primal sea dwelt

Misakamigokwe

(/. c,

The

Entire EarthMother) and her Daughter. This Entire Earth

Woman

isthe impersonation of the inert earth, while the daughter is the life-increasing power of the earth

—

^{the Life}

^Mother —

^the

^Mother

of all Living Things.

These

two

personages wereof the super-race of the ^"first people^"

who

lived

when

the earth

was

yet new.

The

Entire Earth

Woman

cautioned her daughter, saying,

"Daughter, bend not yourself against the sun at noon-tide, be- cause theGreat Father Spirit at thattime looks onyou.

Remember,

NO. I

SMITHSONIAN

EXPLORATIONS, I925 II7

I

command

you, not to forget

my

words, for surely if you do, evil will befall us; since our time to increase the

number

of living things onthe earth onwhich

we

live, is not yet fullycome."

But

there

came

anevilday when, very busy with her mat-making, and with her back unconsciously turned sunward at noon-tide, she dropped her mat-gauge on the ground and unwittingly stooped forward to pick it up. Instantly, she

was

seized with exhausting pains after the

manner

of

women.

So, in due ^{time, the} daughter gave birth to a son,

whom

she

named

Inabi"oji'o' (i.e.. Formed, Created, by a Look). She con- tinued bearing oifspring until four other sons were born to her

—

-

all brothers of Inabi"oji'o'. In order of their birth these brothers were

named

Ningabeon

(The

West), Kiwedinese

(The

North),

Wabanese (The

East), and

Shawanese (The

South). After this time

Misakamigokwe

became Nokomis,thegrandmotherofall living things.

In this highly condensed and abbreviated recital of the

common

Algonquian

myth

of the Beginnings is given the key to the literal signification of the

name Nanabozho (Wenabozho,

etc.), or Inabi"- oji'o'. This

name

is based on the

common

Algonquian verb

w

^{a b,}

"to see, to look," which with associated elements, expressed and understood, gives the literal

meaning

" created, conceived, made, through the look, thegaze (of theGreat Father Spirit).